Friday the 13th analysis

The scene starts off slow, an establishing shot of a rainy night in a forest, and bad weather is usually associated with horror films. The screen is in black and white, this indicates to the audience that this is happening a long time ago. In white the date June 13th 1980 appears, this backs up the suspicion that this is occurring a while ago.

The camera closes in on a close up shot of a sign with the writing ‘Crystal Lake’ on it.  This lets the audience know where the events will occur. Lightning strikes, which creates a sense of danger, the shots start to speed up. Non digetic music begins to play. The music is fast in tempo and creates great tension. There is a mid shot of a young girl limping out of the forest. Her facial expressions show she is in deep pain and is very scared. She is running towards the camera which helps engage the audience and keeps them from losing focus.

A flash of lightning takes us sharply to a name in title credits. It is white wording on a black background. This is keeping in tone with the rest of the scene.

After another flash we see the young girl limping and dragging a machete. We cannot see her face but we can hear her screaming and crying. We do not know how she acquired the weapon and this creates a sense of mystery that keeps the audience interested. The camera tilts up which allows the audience to see her face. By tilting she does not seem bigger than she is. This keeps her in her role of victim. We see a sparkle of light reflect off of her whistle. The whistle represents that she has a role of authority. Another flash of lightning shows another name and by doing this it takes us out of, then back into the action creating a sense of suspense.

This is a point of view shot from behind some trees. The camera is at a high angle which makes it looks like the person is looking down from a hill. This creates levels in the shots. It makes the young girl seem small and helpless and the mystery person seem more powerful. A point of view shot makes the person seem mysterious and takes away any humanity for the time the shot remains. A woman jumps out of the bushes and attacks the young girl. This when accompanied by thunder and lightning makes the audience really on edge as they do not know what is going to happen next but they sense terror. A flash of lightning and another name in the credits appears. The lightning flashes and freezes the scene for a few seconds allowing the audience just enough time to see the name Counsellor on the back of her shirt. This backs up the suspicion that she has a role of authority. Another flash of lightning reveals another name in the credits.

The camera is now in a wide angle point of view shot. We see a woman reaching out talking to the young girl. Her voice is cold and feeble sounding. For the audience this all adds to the suspense and terror of the scene that someone could be so scared of a woman who sounds feeble.

A cut away shot takes us to a person hidden in the trees. The audience then realise this is the person whose point of view we are seeing. His face seems distorted and he appears to have lost some human features. The lack of human features likens him to an alien which further scares the audience.

Another flash of lightning and another credit. The repetition of cut away shots helps stretch out the suspense and helps keep the audience focus for longer.

The camera is in an over shoulder shot of the young girl. We only see the woman talking. This allows us to only see her facial expressions and emotions and keeps us focussed on her. The woman appears to be wearing old fashioned clothes, once again showing it occurred a long time ago.

Another flash of lightning and another name credit.

This time we are in an over shoulder shot of the woman. This allows us to see the young girl’s terror and fear.
Another flash of lightning and another name credit.

The thunder and lightning is more frequent and this shows that we are about to reach the climax of the scene.

We are once again in the over shot of the young girl. This allows us to see every detail as the old woman draws back with her weapon about to stab the young girl.

The camera quickly cuts to the over the shoulder shot of the old woman so we can see the young girl quickly react and decapitate the old woman. As soon as this happened lightning froze the scene with the young girl standing with the machete held up to her left shoulder having swung the machette like a golf club from low down on her right side through the old woman’s neck up to her left shoulder. The scene freeze allows the audience time to process what they have just seen in a very fast moving sequence.

We then cut in on the woman’s decapitated head falling and splashing into a puddle of water in the darkness. We then close up on the head. This shot shows the head in more detail.