This film belongs to the slasher sub-genre of horror. In the opening sequence, some conventions that make it evident that it is a slasher film is the fact there is someone watching a girl, however we don't know who the mysterious person is yet. We only see glimpses of him so it builds the suspense within the audience. Another film that shares conventions with this film opening is Scream (Craven, 1996) because in the opening of Scream, we see a girl on the phone to an unknown character. This builds suspense in the same way that A Nightmare On Elm Street does because it keeps the antagonist hidden so it causes the audience to wonder who they are, what they look like, and why they're after this girl. The audiences generic expectations of this film opening are fulfilled as they go to watch as slasher horror film to be scared by the fact someone is being watched. This opening sequence sets the tone for the rest of the movie as it straight away gets the audience gripped with action that relates to what the film will be about. It allows them to question what is going on and it incises them into continuing watching to find out what's going to happen and ask why the girl is having dreams like what and how it managed to actually rip her clothing. The text does conform to the characteristics of the genre as it is quite a serious opening and none of it is ironic or playful. It makes the audience feel worried for the character, instead of laughing at her misfortune.Film Language
This opening involves a lot of variation in camera distances, movement and angles. It starts off tracking the movement of the antagonists feet. By filming only his feet, it creates the mystery of who the character is and by keeping him a mystery helps to signify that he is the antagonist. Various different angles are then used to show the variety of tools he has and what he is doing with them. A birds eye view shot is used when he tips out all the tools onto his work area, it then cuts to different close ups of him picking up other tools and then using them to allow the audience to understand he is most probably going to be making a dangerous weapon as all the shots lead us to believe that. Multiple close ups are used on the female protagonists face to clearly show the audience all the details of her face. It allows the audience to see her scared facial expressions as well as the sweat dripping from her, which could partly be from the boiler room and partly be due to fear. Editing in the sequence is done as continuity editing. As soon as the female protagonist enters the scene she is the one who is given prevalence and who motivates the cuts. This means we are following her so we are therefore made to care for her. The mise-en-scene in the sequence helps to convey meaning. The female's costume is a white, long, floaty nightgown dress. The connotations of white are innocence and it makes her seem quite angelic so it signifies that she is the one we should care for and that she is quite vulnerable in this situation. The location of a boiler room is quite a dangerous place to be so it adds to the sense of danger she is in and it also gives the antagonist multiple places to hide. The use of the knives as hands prop for the antagonist is what makes him such an iconic character. It shows her is a dangerous character and someone to be fear. It conveys that he is planning to brutally harm someone which therefore causes the audience to dislike him from the start. The lighting in the sequence is also very effective. When the female comes into the sequence, she is shown with a bright light behind her. This helps to create the effect of the fact she is in a dream as we don't know where she has come from or how she got there and it also helps to emphasize how angelic she is. The lighting within the boiler room is a lot darker and there are a lot more shadows which are used to help keep the antagonist a mystery. There is a shot of the antagonist peering round to look at the girl however we can't fully see his face due to the effective shadow lighting placed on his face to keep him a mystery for a more shocking reveal later on to continue to build the tension. In this particular opening sequence there is no dialogue within her dream other than some grumbling noises from the antagonist as extra diegetic sounds and and a scream from the female. This is because the antagonist is being kept secret and the female has no reason to talk in it. However, once she wakes up from her dream, her mum walks in to check on her but does not seem very sympathetic. From the way the female protagonist says her dialogue we can sense that she is very terrified after her horrific nightmare as she has a sense of shakeyness to her voice. Her non verbal language within the dream is a lot of scared facial expressions and flailing arm movements. This signifies her frantic fear and how she just wants everything to disappear. The sound is what helps make the sequence tense and scary. Right from the start there is a creepy, quite high pitched undertone to it which builds the tension within the audience and it goes on to continue when the female comes into the shot and the sudden high volume, short bang noises are what make the audience jump and keep them feeling scared within the scene. The director does not use any other visual post production techniques within this opening so the tension built is purely due to the camera work and sound. At the beginning of the opening sequence, the first thing we are shown is the distributors name. It is written in big, bold, red text as red has connotations of blood to add to the effect of it being a horror film. Then, whilst we see the antagonist is creating his knife hands, other companies and people involved within the making of the film are writing underneath the shots in white writing. It's placed there quite subtly to not take away your interest from the scene as the text is simple and not boldly coloured. There is also a few text graphics throughout the scene but in the same text type and colour and to the sides to not take away from the action of the scene.connotes blood and danger so it is an effective colour to choose and place on a back background. Then once that scene is complete, we title of the film pops up from the bottom and the words 'A Nightmare' are written in red, bold writing, with 'On Elm Street' written within it. Again, the redness of the text
Narrative
The plot of the opening sequence is that first off we see the hidden antagonist in a boiler room, using different tools to create sharp knives that he attaches to his hands. We then see a young woman run through a boiler room, hearing different noises and getting increasingly more scared as she works out she is being stalked. Then, when the antagonist finally catches her she awakens from a dream with cuts down her nightgown like the ones made by the hands of the antagonist. This is a typical stock plot of a slasher film as they are all about people being stalked. The female protagonist is a stock character seen within this genre of films as stereotypically it is always a young woman who gets herself into trouble and is the victim. She is an archetypal character of horror. The antagonist is also a stock character as, even though we only see him in the shadows, we can work out he has some sort of face disorientation so is scarred and is older than the victim. This shows that he is a stereotypical antagonist and it allows the audience to clearly understand who plays what role in the film. The sequence is in chronological order. It shows us how the antagonist gets his knife hands, then the girl in her dream, and then her waking up from her dream. The audience is positioned in a way to feel bad for the female as she motivates the majority of the cuts and we don't know what it is that is after her, so due to the fact we can see her and are familiar with her, it positions the audience to be on her side and feel worried for her safety. Tension is created and maintained through the use of sound and keeping the antagonist hidden. The sound mix of the sequence increases in volume certain parts to try and make the audience jump. For example, there is a sudden bang of noise and the female turns in fear to see what it was, but it turns out to just be a goat however it does make the audience jump and create tension within them. The crafty camera and use of lighting to keep the antagonist hidden also helps to create the tension as it adds a sense of mystery to the sequence. It causes the audience to question who it is and what they are after.
Representation & Ideology
The social groups represented in this sequence are gender, and possibly age. Gender is represented in a way to make the female look weak. It has the male/female binary opposition within it and it sticks to the dominant ideologies of males being the more dominant, violent characters and females being weak and the damsel in distress stereotype. In the sequence, the female is quite a young woman which makes her more vulnerable. It obvious to tell she is younger than the antagonist due to the grumbling extra diegetic sounds we hear which we assume are coming from him.
Media Audiences
The target audience of this film will be horror movie fans. They will most probably be quite young as the plot of the film is based around a young group of people. The possible audience readings of the text can be quite different. The dominant/preferred reading is that a female is having a dream in which there is a killer after her, but what happens in her dream effects her in real life. The negotatied reading could be that the audience wonder how her dream has actually effected her real life clothing and become confused by the concept. The oppositional reading could be the audience understand the point in the film's idea, but do not like the fact the whole opening sequence was a dream and don't like how what happens in her dream happens in real life as it can be quite confusing. They might much rather have just a whole real life film. As a female, British teenager myself, I read and evaluate the text as the dominant reading. I understood the concept of it and I quite like the idea of the antagonist getting into her dreams and harming her that way. It's quite unique and effective, even though I am not a horror fan myself. I think my reading and evaluation of the film is influenced by my age, gender and background as I am quite girly so not a fan of horror films but I have seen part of horror films my family have watched so I like the uniqueness of this one. I also like how this film includes young people around my age so I am able to relate to them and feel for them.
Institutional Context
The actors used in this film were not A listers at the time when they were cast. However, they have now become well known for their role in this film and many others. Some of the actors were Johnny Depp, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund. Robert Englund played one of the biggest contemporary horror icons to date. Freddy Krueger is such a big horror icon now and everyone who watches horror films will know about him. This film was produced by Media Home Entertainment and distributed by New Line Cinema so is now seen to be an industrial film, however at the time it was made, New Line Cinema was an independent company and was not owned by Time Warner. It had a budget of $1.8 million. The original budget was meant to be $700,000 on production but it ended up being $1.1 million, with half the funding coming from a Yugoslavian man who wanted his girlfriend to be in movies. The opening scene doesn't involved any computer generated images or any prosthetics as we don't see the antagonists face. It's quite a simple sequence of a girl being followed, with quite simple costumes, so the only thing that could be quite costly in the scene is the location. It is set in a boiler room before she wakes up from her dream so if it was a real location it could be quite expensive to pay out to use it or if it was done on set then it could have been quite costly to build everything. This shows the production values to be evident in this opening sequence as it's nothing like what would be in a high budget film opening.
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