A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - horror
The editing flickers on the title of "from new line cinema", that title fades out. Then cuts to a window on the screen where the action is taking place while title continue to play. The sound is a static noise, with interruption of the items being moved such as the knife as well as a breathing noises and growling. These sounds are already unsetting for the audience, as they are seeing rather odd things happen with no clue how is doing it and uncomfortable sounds. This automatically makes the audience think whoever is doing this is up to something out of the ordinary. The static noise becomes louder as the editing of the title comes on. Then following that there is screaming, as the shot changes to knife like hands tear through a sheet. We see a mid-shot of a teenage girl the first character we have seen their face. There is creepy music layer over the static noise along with the sound of rain drop from the water along side the teenager's foot steps as she runs. A gunshot sound take place as the women takes a sharp intake of breath as the camera cuts to a sheep that screams and is running away from the direction to which the teenager was running. The sheep which is rather odd to have, make the sequence even more unsettling, The music changes into a taunting, as the women is running around what seems to be some warehouse, away from the thudding sounds. The warehouse as steams and dim lighting which makes the area seem dingy and adds to the creepy atmosphere. The last see is the same knife like hands that through the sheet from just before we saw the girl, and the sequence ends. The knife hands going through the sheet is almost like it going through and bed cover, and my seeing this imagine twice is almost like it's the beginning and end of this teenage girls dream.
From the just the sequence, we expect the rest of the narrative to be from the person who has the knife hands to carry on haunting the teenage girl or other people and eventually see the persons face.
The genre of the film for the sequence seems to be a horror, from the creepy music and atmosphere and the random screams and the knife like hands.
The target audience is for young adults, and a white American audience as it made as an old American film. Also made for a male audience as it a horror and slasher which are typically made for males due to computer game such Grand Theft Auto being popular in males teens and young adults which have a lot of gore and blood in them.
I think the opening title was successful for when it was made, as the movie is around 40 years old the editing and quality of the sequence is a little out of not date and not as clean as films today. Also the knife hands are that scary compare to modern film such as Annabelle with has a lot of SFX. But the sound of the sequence would unsettle any audience, and put the audience on edge and builds tension. By being able to create and hold tension and engage the audience i think this is a good opening title sequence and it makes the audience attach an interest.
