Woman In Black Textual Analysis

'Woman in Black' was released in 2012, distributed by Hammer Film Productions and is about a haunted Manor 'Eel Marsh Manor'. The rating of this film is a 12A, their target audience was around this age, however, the audience of this film was older than expected.

The opening of this film involves three young girls playing with their dollies and tea cups when suddenly they get up and jump out of the window. It is then revealed that there is a figure at the back of the room that they are playing in, that consequently could have caused them to act abnormally.

The camera work in the opening of 'The Woman in Black' makes it clear to the audience the abnormal behaviour of the three girls. This is because there are mid shots of the girls playing and close ups of the dollies as tea cups are brought to their mouths. 

When the atmosphere changes, there are close up of the dollies and tea cups again, but rather than the young girls pressing down their clothes and giving them tea cups, the girls are destroying them. This significantly is shown with close up shots of them stepping on the tea pots and a dolly head, smashing them in the pursuit to get to the window in a possessed manner. 

There is no use of hand held camera shots in this opening. This creates the effect that there is no emotional attachment as the audience do not feel what the characters are feeling. It also can connote how it is another era and is a reflection rather than being a representation of the present day. 

There are no credits in the opening of this film, the actions begins straight away, which grips the audience. The editing is also slow paced and when the girls are walking towards the window, there is use of slow motion to build tension and leave the audience to question what they are going to do, before the characters confirm their suspicions of them jumping out of the window. 

The sound in the opening of 'Women in Black' conforms to the horror genre and as it is eerie. The music is strings but what sounds like a music box playing with it, this relates to young girls and iconography of them as well as sounding creepy and haunting. When the girls become possessed, church bells sound connoting death and foreshadowing what is going to happen as they continue to be heard till they jump out of the window, which end the climactic tension with a loud scream. 

The mis en scene in the opening spark the connection to a horror film as there are young girls playing with dolls, a common prop that is used in horror films as a stimulus for the horror. This relates to the 'Reception Theory' as the audience will be dominant to this message and therefore make the connection to this iconography. The costumes in this opening, represent the era as they are not clothes that would be worn in the present day by children to play. Horror films often set films in the past as they are dark and have old manors in them. 

This helps with the research into our opening as it is evident that the costumes give clues of the time period in which the film was set. Also, the slow paced editing gives a climactic effect. Furthermore, having sound that correlates with what is happening in the narrative, engages the audience.