Crimson peak – clip review

Daniel Jacques

In the first 9 seconds of the clip we get a medium closeup of the bed showing the girl waking up and reacting to the dog barking which in this sequence is diegetic sound, as the viewer we are also made to feel creeped out because of the low-key lighting and the eerie non-diegetic music that has been composed for the sequence. As the first 9 seconds go on the camera zooms out giving us a view of the bed and then it switches to a medium shot on the opposite side of the bed so we can see her reaction. Then it cuts to a medium close up of her face so we can see her face lit and her reactions to the surroundings and the dog barking, the mise-en-scene here is the bed from where she woke and the candlestick she is holding in her hand as the only source of light except moonlight making the scene more creepier to make the viewer more on edge and creeped out. Then we get a pan right as she walks towards the corridor which switches to an over the shoulder view of the low-key lit corridor which is empty except a large circular window letting in some light the mise-en-scene of the window and how the light lands on the floor possibly foreshadows that the corridor will be of importance later in the sequence. As we see this we get a piece of diegetic sound that is common in most horror films, a squeaky door opening and closing again this is done for the effect of making the audience creeped out as we can see she is clearly alone. As she goes to investigate we get a medium shot of her walking through a corridor switching to a medium long shot of her and a room which is just staircases, the stairs are low-key lit with shadows from something across them this is like this for 2 seconds enough for the audience to establish where she is in this castle or house, the mise-en-scene suggests it more like a castle or mansion due to the banners on the staircase and the large windows and staircase, a low-key lit castle or house at night is a common place setting for a modern day horror, then we get to see more of the corridor as we get a steadicam shot that tracks right and pans left as it follows her walking down the corridor to where she thought she heard ‘’Thomas’’. Then it pans right as we hear the door shut and the dog stop barking, again adding suspense as the only sound that is heard is the non-diegetic music added onto the video making the audience on edge.

As she goes to open the door that she thinks the dog went into we get a close up of her face switching to a long shot of her from an over the shoulder of the dog so we can guess it wasn’t the dog in the room then we get a closeup of the dog as it barks switching to a close up of her face so we can see her reaction knowing that she’s reacting to the dog, and that in this case it may have been something unknown to both character and viewr that made the noise, the camera then snaps to a medium shot with a face seen even in the low key lit room confirming our idea of the unnatural making the sounds. As the door slams the camera pans right and down to give us a close up of the doorknob as she opens the door again to find it empty, we get a view of her reaction as the camera shot is a close up but it’s on the shelve placed so we can also see a box, however the focus is on the deep field of view so the box is blurred but we can see her reaction to just shelves and a box when the door was slammed shut by a person, we then se an over the shoulder view of the box so we can see what is in it, clearly making what’s in there of importance. We then get a long shot of the corridor with more non-diegetic sound giving the audience a sense that something is going to happen. The sound then switches to diegetic as we hear a moan and see a hand shoot up from the floor as the camera pans from her to the corridor, making the audience jump as we are already on edge and were not expecting it.