R9: Textual analysis of a short horror film

I am going to be analysing the short horror film "The moonlight man", which was uploaded onto YouTube in October 2015.



Firstly, mis en scene in this short horror film is used to create the stereotypical horror film setting and the produce the conventional effects on the audience. For example, the film is set in the dark, with the sky being black and the street lights being switched on. This is a very stereotypical setting of horror films, especially used to foreshadow that something bad will happen and the use of the dark setting in this short film does this effectively. This is because, the colour black and darkness in general, symbolises evil, fear and mystery. As a result, tension is conventionally likely to build within the audience, simply due to the use of the dark settings, as the audience may begin with to infer that something will happen to the female lead. However, more academically mature individuals in the audience may read the text in an op-positional manner, as they may point out that it is not the dark settings that connotes that evil is around, it is the use a female lead, who through her fearful facial expressions and panic expressing actions, connotes that there is an evil force out there, because of the fact both the female protagonists expressions and action,represents her as being a stereotypical weak woman, who is desperate to run away.

The use of sound in this short horror film, varies between adhering to conventions and developing the conventions. For example, in the scene in the car, the female protagonist pants and hyperventilates, which symbolises panic and fear, which is very conventional in horror films where there is minimal to no dialogue and through this human sound, the audience are more likely to empathise with the female protagonist, in the sense of feeling alone and scared, as a result this may build stress and fear within the audience. However, when the female protagonist steps out of the car with a torch in her hand, non diejetic sound of the plucking of base guitar begins, This sound is conventional in the sense that it is of a low key, but this convention is developed, as often this sound is used to connote courage and heroism in action adventure films. As a result, the female protagonist becomes a counter-type, as she is represented as being brave by attempting to face this monster haunting her and represented as being  resourceful, as the female protagonist uses a torch as a weapon to defend herself. This may create enigma codes (Barthes), such as will the woman beat the evil force (The Moonlight man) or will she be beaten, thus this may help to build anxiety within the audience in response to the enigma code.

The use of editing in this short horror film is very conventional, as fast paced editing is used when the horror element arrives and slow paced editing is used to build up to the arrival and end of the horror element. For example, in the car scene, fast paced editing is used, through the quick cuts, to show the female protagonist get up from searching for her phone, re-locking the right car door then re- locking the left car door. This fast paced editing works to connote the distraught and hysteria of the female character, which helps to also create a jump scare within the audience. Moreover, after the fast paced editing, in the same car scene, slow paced editing begins, when the female character sits in her seat in alarm looking around for the monster. As a result, the tension within the audience continues to remain, as the slow paced editing, does not signify the end of the horror element, but connotes that there is more to come from The Moonlight Man.

At the end of this short horror film, the use of camera is important in creating the finale horror scene with The Moonlight Man and female protagonist. For example, point of view shot is used, when the car boot opens on its own and the woman turns to see an empty, dark and confined space. The camera also slowly zooms in slightly in the point of view shot, This type of camera shot is conventional in short horror films, as it is an easy way of putting the audience in the position of the protagonists in the horror scene. In this particular scene, the use of the point of view and slow zoom in, may induce alarm in the audience, as it may trigger claustrophobia due to the dark, confined view of the car boot. Furthermore, the use of a car boot may connote to being trapped and stuck, thus the audience may begin to infer that this car boot is significant and the audience may predict that the female protagonist and this car boot are linked to each other, which helps to maintain the fear within the audience, as the audience may predict that the female protagonist will die in her own car boot.