Genre Analysis "The Grudge"

First of all it is clear the film is going to be a horror/thriller film because of the production team. The production team is called Ghost House Pictures and their logo is a skeleton looking through a key hole, which immediately shows the viewer the genre of the film.

It is clearly evident from the opening of The Grudge, that the genre is likely to be a thriller, horror, or a mystery. This is evident in the way it starts; there are titles that come up on the screen in ghostly white writing on a threatening black background, the sentence stays there for a while then the words fade away which makes the opening seem unnerving and one key word written in blood red writing is left “Curse” “Death” “Fury”. This connotes that this film may be a horror because red connotes blood, and the words tell us it’s not going to be a happy film, it may be gory or even psychological. 

The writing was used to introduce the story before we see any characters, and it is not uncommon for exposition to open a horror film. When we get more into it and see the characters Barthes’ enigma code theory is present as we do not know anything about the people; who they are, what they are doing, for example we do not know why the man is up early. The establishing shot showing where the film is set seems fairly ordinary, but the man shows us something is wrong by the way he keeps looks around, like he is looking out for something bad. And we are left wondering why he is on the balcony and why he is not in bed with the girl. Enigma codes would often be in horror films to keep the viewer wondering what is going to happen next, making tension in the film.

The narration seems to be restricted narration because we do not know the man is going to throw himself off his balcony so the narrative is only tied to one character at the start, creating a sense of mystery and horror right at the beginning, showing the audience what kind of film genre this is going to be. I think most horror films would be based on restricted narration as it keeps the sense of mystery and un-knowing about it, which makes it scary. However the narration may slip in and out of restricted and omniscient narration, because if the audience know more than what the characters know in the film, it makes it more tense, and creates a sense of fear because the audience are waiting for something to happen to the characters.

Non diegetic sounds have been put in to add to the atmosphere of the genre, when the man has fallen a high key piano plays, this suggests that it wasn't just a suicide attempt and maybe has deeper meaning than that. The music creates a creepy feel to it, proving that the genre in in fact horror.