Deconstruction of Chase Scenes

The singer The Weeknd uploaded a teaser for his trilogy album and one teaser included a chase scene. The woman is running away from the camera in a red dress, and red is an interesting colour because it symbolises blood, danger, love and lust - points which our opening is centered around.

 

She is running in the middle of the night along a secluded road which conforms to the slasher conventions of night-time attacks in isolated places where no one will see it. For example, in When A Stranger Calls, the babysitter is being tormented by a killer in a large house (where he hides in several rooms) in the middle of nowhere.

Back to the teaser, the use of smoke floating in the air creates a sense of mystery and almost makes the chase scene seem like an illusion. The non-diegetic song being played is slow and this scene has been slowed to follow the song. This intensifies the chase, making it more scary yet intriguing. I really like this chase scene, however when she turns around she is not scared and this scene is not a POV shot which is what our opening must include. Nevertheless, the idea of a dark smoky night, secluded wood-like area and a female victim in a red flowing dress would fit in well with our opening.

In Halloween (2007) Michael Myers chases Judith down a hallway with low key lighting. The victim is wearing a short white dress, which makes her visible in the darkness, with blood all over it. Michael walks behind her as she tries to run away however she is staggering because he has just stabbed her. She falls to the floor at the end of the scene and dies while Michael is standing over her. This chase scene would have been more effective if there was a shot from Michael's POV of him looking down on her as she is trying to escape him. This would make Judith look more vulnerable and inferior to his power. In our opening, the victim will not be struggling because she will die immediately, however of inspiration from Halloween we could use is the idea of the short white dress because it emits a sense of sexuality and we blood is visibly prominent against white.

In Texas Chainsaw Massacre the victim is being chased in the woods at night by the killer and his chainsaw. The low key lighting is used and blue is added over to emphasise the moonlight and this is effective because it makes the victim seem more vulnerable as she is not able to see much because it is dark. Also, she is running through a wooded area, as in our feedback from questionnaire here, we will have our chase scene is a wooded area as well, so we could use the night time element to intensify the chase and make the killer look very powerful and the victim weaker when she is struggling through the branches and bushes.

Overall, I tried to choose dark chase scenes to find inspiration for our chase. The one that I preferred was The Weeknd's chase because it was slowed down which makes the chase seem longer and harder and it matched the speed of the song which was effective because the chase visually aided the song. However, aspects from Halloween such as the white clothing highlighting the blood and from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the branches trapping the victim will be incorporated in our opening because they are effective.