The Signs evaluation
“Signs” is a 2002 film American horror alien invasion film. This is important to know because during the 2002 the Americans were worried about apocolcyed in one form or another and the alien invasion fear has been with the American culture since the 1950’s but got popularised during the 1970’s. And is especially a stereotyp for Americans living in small town because of crop circles. Its also a stereotyp for people like that to fear the end of the world. Which the film goes into deep detail in by covering all of these with the film by mostly using the crop field to great fear and to introduce the idea of aliens within the film. Even though the film is ladled as horror it does contain a number of comedy moments within it. But because of the good use of sound design it makes it very clear that its a horror movie by using good jump scares and with creepy sounding music. After analysing the title it can mean a number of different meanings. The fact its called signs in can imply that the audience will have to look out for small details to make up the whole plot that this is true to a degree because of the aliens weakness being shown early own in a very unnoticeable scene. Or it could be to do with the horror within it meaning that their being danger ahead like a road sign. Or it could be a reference to the crop circles and how its a sign for the aliens are coming but it lets us know early what the genre is. The opening credits are very much like its a chase scene with very dangerous sounding music this puts the viewer on edge and is very useful to get people on the edge of their chairs very early on. The film starts off being vey quiet, making you able to hear the childrens screams in the back ground. Even when they race to the children its still extremely quiet. And it also shows us all of the main characters within the first few minutes. The silence ends when they find the kids in the middle of a crop circle and the music starts to play but it only makes the scene even creepier because of the choice of music making the whole scene a lot scarier.
The development with the story isn’t what most people would assume it is by hearing of it or not paying attention to it while watching it. If you heard about it you would assume its an alien story about an invasion but its a lot more clever than that. It is a very human story with the main focus being on the family and doesn’t even show the invasion. It just has two scenes with the aliens actually being clearly seen within it. The development of the film is the family coming to terms with their mother’s deaths in all different ways and is very compelling for anyone who has lost anyone before. The father development is very complex and is the main focus of the film, with him coming to terms with his wifes death and because of his wifes death he lost his faith and he spends the whole movie regaining it until we see him at the end in his uniform. And it feels very human and realistic and is very compelling. The cinematography is very effective, making it feel like hes talking with you because of the face on shots and the lighting also gives this uneasy feeling because of the bright lights or at least it being sunny with scary moments happening within it, giving the audience an uneasy feeling to the viewer. There is also a good extreme long shot in the corn field making you feel he’s alone even though he isn’t. The mise en scene is very important within this film because it shows the house which should be a very safe place for any family and make it where the family are trapped and terrified in. Making the audience feel uneasy and that nothing is safe. The corn field is also very important as well. Adding more danger and the feeling of the unknown to any scene its in becuse it feels like anything can be around the corner. The sound track is very quiet and soft to make the audience on edge so the slightest sound can make you react. And the creepy music to also give the audience a very uneasy feeling. The editing is has long shots to make the uneasy feeling that the film gives the audience before and adds to it because it doesn’t build tension but because it add more creepy shots and actions what are spaced out making it last even longer than you thought it would be to give the audience a creepy feeling and has them looking over their shoulder while being tied to the screen at what happens
Evaluation of dead hearts
Dead hearts is a short horror move what’s produced by Crypt TV, a production company what make short horror film and upload them onto YouTube. Dead hearts is a horror, love story with elements of comedy and action within them. It also has\ small bit of animation within it such as the opening. But is mostly live action. The story starts off about Milton the main character growing up at school. He doesn’t want to be a mortician like his parents. He’s also being bullied by a bigger kid because Milton’s parents were the people who cremated his dad’s ashes so the bigger kid is bullying him because of it every day, like clockwork. Until one day a blind girl called Lola moves to their school. Both Milton and the bigger kid both like the girl. During Halloween Milton is being bullied by the bigger kid and this other kid in another mask comes along and beat up the other kids. Which the person within the mask reveals her face and she’s Lola. Lola and Milton then fall in love but then Lola’s parents die and she has to move away to live with other family members. Then it’s a transition to when Milton is an old man and he’s all alone doing a job that he hates. After Lola moved away Milton was with no one else and is alone until his old age. Milton then ends his life after donating his heart to charity. But Milton then comes back to life as a zombie and goes looking for his missing heart where he is then reunited with Lola because the night Milton ended his own life; Lola had a heart attack and Milton heart he donated saved her life. But we quickly find out that the old bully was still trying to win Lola’s heart but a fight breaks out and the bully’s friends are beaten up but Lola has a heart attack and dies, Milton then kills his old bully and the bully’s friends. But Lola ends up coming back to life and Milton and Lola can finally live happily ever after. The plot is interesting and I did enjoy it but the execution of it wasn’t well done. The cuts in and out of animation are nice to look at but it does feel very out of place. Very similar to another horror movie called “evil dead” where they do a stop motion shot of the “book of the dead” near the end of it, while both are animations of books the reason the one from dead hearts feels out of pace is because the choice of animations. One is a lot cartoonier and feels more like a story book and doesn’t really feel like it belongs within the film. The whole film is very similar to a fairytale though, so I can understand why they went for the book animation but I think if it was animated more realistically or was done in stop motion it would’ve looked and felt more natural. The whole story is very similar to a fairytale, The fight scenes between Lola and the bullies have them both dressed up as fairytale characters such as red riding hood and the big bad wolves.