Stagefright Uses Editing to Disorient and Unnerve

The editing in Michael Soavi's Stagefright (1987) effectively disorients the audience, thus unnerving them and making them more susceptible to shocks and fear.

 

A mad slasher (wearing an owl mask) is stalking six people trapped in a theater. Alicia (Barbara Cupisti) runs into the shower room, where she finds Laurel (Mary Sellers) lying in the left stall, bloodied but still alive. Alicia hears the slasher approaching from the hallway.

 

 

Cut to the slasher in the hallway.

 

Cut to Alicia, having heard the slasher, closing back the curtain on Laurel in the left stall, then hiding in right stall.

Cut to Alicia in the right stall, pulling the curtain closed.

 

Cut to the slasher entering the shower room. Two curtained stalls before him. Laurel on left (behind the bloodied curtain). Alicia on the right.

 

 

Cut to Alicia in the stall.

 

Cut to the slasher's POV (point of view), coming toward the two shower stalls.

 

 

Cut to the slasher's silhouette across the curtain. He is drawing near.

 

 

Cut to Alicia's worried expression. Her eye line is directed at the curtain. Her acting and the eye line match implies that the silhouette is her POV. That the slasher is approaching her stall.

 

Cut to Alicia backing against the wall. Her staging reinforces the notion that the silhouette is against her curtain.

 

 

Cut to slasher drawing nearer to the curtain. Close enough that his owl mask is visible. Then in the same shot, he yanks aside the curtain.

 

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Cut to a close up on Alicia. Her eye line is directed toward the slasher in the previous shot. She appears to be looking at him.

 

 

Cut to the slasher drawing nearer. The mask's eye line directed at Alicia in the previous shot.

 

 

Cut to Alicia's POV of the slasher looming over Laurel. In the same shot, he raises Laurel, who looks toward Alicia in the right stall.

 

 

Cut to Alicia looking back at Laural, eye line match to Laurel.

Thus Stagefright's editing has fooled us. The POV shots, eye line matches, acting, staging, and editing suggested that the slasher was approaching Alicia's stall. But it was Laurel's. He still doesn't know that Alicia is there. She is still safe.

For more examples of how editing can disorient an audience, see my posts on Vacancy and Galaxy of Terror.

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For more information on editing in horror films, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.

Long Shots and Staging in The Woman in Black

It has been said that "Comedy is a long shot, tragedy a closeup." The idea is that closeup shots allow an audience to more easily empathize with a character. When we see a character's agonized face, with agonize with them. Conversely, long shots emotionally distance us from a character, so that when they suffer, when they slip and fall, we laugh at them rather than with them.

But there is no firm rule for a shot's emotional impact. Much depends on how the shot is used in the context of the film; its story, characters, genre, themes, style, etc.

The Woman in Black (1989) is an old-fashioned, English ghost story set in a rural town in 1925. The ghost herself (played by Pauline Moran) is usually seen from a distance, in extreme long shots. Writing for The Guardian (August 7, 2020) Andrew Male reports:

 

By the conventions of the modern horror film, the woman in black is seen rarely and – with one big exception – from a distance. “I deliberately didn’t show her close up,” the late Wise told journalist Tony Earnshaw in 2015, “because then the audience can construct a face which is horrible to you, your personal horror.” 

 

Herbert Wise is citing the old horror rule that what the audience can imagine is scarier than anything a writer can describe or a filmmaker show. But as with the previous rule, I don't think it's always true. However, this rule worked very well for Robert Wise (no relation to Herbert Wise) in The Haunting.

Actually, contrary to Male's claim of "one big exception," the ghost in The Woman in Black is twice seen in closeups.

The first time, a half hour into the film, Arthur Kidd (Adrian Rawlins) is wandering about a deserted family cemetery. He stops when he senses something behind him. He jolts aside and sees the ghost in the distance. We thereupon see the ghost framed in extreme long shot, then medium shot, then closeup, then (as she walks toward Kidd) in extreme closeup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apart from the shot framing, this scene is also admirable for its staging. As Kidd wanders about, he is surrounded by a barren landscape. It's obvious that he is alone. He pauses, as if he suddenly senses a presence, then rubs the back of his neck. He jolts around. The ghost is suddenly there behind him.

Most likely, actress Pauline Moran was lying on the ground, then rose while Kidd stood still, the shot staged in such a manner that Rawlins was blocking her, so that Moran seemed to have appeared from nowhere. A clever example of how low budget filmmakers can use staging to manifest a ghost, if they are unable to afford visual effects.

 

The second closeup of the ghost, some 76 minutes into the film, is likely the one that Male refers to as the "big exception." It makes for quite a scare. See the film.

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For more information on framing and staging in horror films, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.

Mobile Camera and Staging Enlivens The Vast of Night

Stage plays adapted to film can appear static. Long scenes with people just sitting and talking can weary an audience. Thus, filmmakers will sometimes try to liven up events by breaking single location scenes into different locations, taking the characters outdoors for a walk as they continue talking. Or they'll have the camera roam for a bit, inserting a few brief action shots for an interlude to break the monotony of all that talk.

The Vast of Night (2019) is a talky film. Although its topic of alien abduction carries much potential for action, it has many long, static scenes of people just sitting and talking.

In one scene, Fay (Sierra McCormick) sits at switchboard for ten minutes, listening to the radio or talking to people over the phone. Ten minutes is a long time to focus on one person just sitting in tight quarters, talking or listening.

It can be interesting, if there's an engaging character in an intriguing situation. And Fay is engaging. But however good the scene is, it might be even better if things were livened up.

Director Andrew Patterson uses a mobile camera and staging (actors walking or driving about for long stretches) as active interludes between his long, static scenes. Breaking up things before stupor sets into the audience.

The Vast of Night opens with a long take, a mobile camera following Everett (Jake Horowitz) as he enters a high school gym, walking about, talking to several people, following a teacher downstairs to the basement, then up and out again, into the parking lot.

Patterson uses several long takes for this scene (some over two minutes in length) while a mobile camera instills a sense of anticipation and excitement. Thus the film is mostly a series of long, static scenes of people talking -- discussing aliens, government conspiracies, and lights in the sky -- interspersed with long interludes of the camera roaming about.

Sometimes Patterson's mobile camera follows people. But sometimes it appears to be seeking something. In which case, these mobile shots serve a secondary purpose.

At one point, the camera glides quickly over the dark streets of this small New Mexico town, nobody in sight. Because of 1, the story's context, and 2, no human is present, and 3, the camera moves faster than any human can run, it feels as if we're seeing events from the POV of unearthly being. An alien, perhaps? This appears not to be the case, but the feeling is there nonetheless. And it adds to the film's eeriness.

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For more information on cinematography and staging in horror, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.

Poor Staging of Actors in Evidence of a Haunting

One of the film director's jobs is to stage the actors -- to instruct them on where to sit or stand, where to look, when to notice each other, etc.

Staging is a fine art, the search for a delicate balance. It's rarely a good idea to over-direct the actors, directing their every smile, frown, head tilt, eyebrow lift, shift in tone of voice. Then the actors feel like constrained marionettes, denied the freedom to "find their character."

But neither is it a good idea to just dump the actors on set, and leave them milling about, without any instruction or direction. This is especially true if one is working with amateur actors, because they lack the training to behave appropriately without direction.

Evidence of a Haunting, yet another fictitious horror film about "true-life TV ghosthunters," provides an instructive example of inept staging.

In this scene, our team of ghosthunters go to their next investigation, a haunted suburban house. We see our ghosthunters outside the house, approaching the front door...

We then cut to this (above) shot of a father and his two daughters, standing like mannequins in the hallway, doing nothing very much. Apparently the director placed them in the hall, because soon the doorbell will ring, so they must be prepared to open the door.

HUH?

How does this family know the ghosthunters are soon to ring the bell? Were they standing in the hall for the past several hours, just waiting for the doorbell to ring?

I also love how the father has his eyes closed, the older daughter slouches while smirking and staring at nothing much, and the younger daughter looks bored.

Well, of course she's bored. You'd be bored too if you spent your evenings standing in a hallway waiting for someone who is expected to arrive sometime over the next several hours.

As for the older daughter, I suppose she's smirking because she's so excited to be in a movie. It's anyone's guess why the father fell asleep.

DING-DONG!

Now the doorbell rings, bringing the father and older daughter to life. The younger daughter is a little late to react.

Perhaps this shot is taking a long time to finish. Young children bore easily. Amateur child actors are no exception to this rule.

Even so, the younger daughter comes alive in time to lean in unison with her family, as everyone prepares to see who's out there. The family that leans together stays together.

Captions now also provide their names, identifying them as our ghosthunters' clients.

And our ghosthunters are outside! They enter and everyone exchanges the usual banal pleasantries.

This shot is poorly staged, poorly directed, and poorly edited.

* A better alternative is for the actors to have been staged off-camera, as if they were busy living their lives elsewhere in the house. They should have entered the hallway only after the doorbell rings.

* Even better if only one of them enters the hall to open the door. Otherwise it's a light bulb joke. How many clients do you need to open a door? Three. One to turn the knob and two to lean over and watch.

* Another alternative would have been to delete this shot entirely. Why not just cut to an exterior shot of the house, followed by our ghosthunters already interviewing the clients inside the house. It would have quickened the pace. As it is, this shot is not only poorly staged, it is superfluous, in that it doesn't add anything necessary to the film.

* At the very least the director should have trimmed this shot so that we don't see the family waiting in the hall, the father asleep. Perhaps the actor was only resting his eyes, or blinking. It's a brief moment. Even so, the director should have caught it in the editing room and trimmed the shot. The film's editor also bears blame.

Evidence of a Haunting has many problems. This shot is just a sample. The film is poorly written, ineptly staged, and performed by a cast of amateur wannabe-actors. But I can forgive bland dialog and amateurish acting if a film is entertaining. Evidence of a Haunting is not. It's boring.

For an example of good horror staging, see my post about "Legion of Demons."

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For more information about staging and editing in horror films -- see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.

Demon: Low-Budget Framing of a Period Piece

One of a low-budget filmmaker's biggest challenges is finding decent locations. Actors and crew will often work for free. But good locations (i.e., not the filmmaker's basement apartment) usually cost money. This is especially true if you want to shoot outdoors, on a busy city street. Insurance and permits must be obtained, and streets must be cleared of pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

Some low-budget filmmakers ignore this problem by shooting "guerrilla style." They eschew insurance and permits, and shoot only a few actors, on city streets or in malls, with a handheld camera. They hope that their cast and crew resemble tourists with a camera, and they'll thus be ignored by police and security guards.

(Note: In the 1980s, New York City only required a shooting permit if a filmmaker's equipment touched the ground. Filmmakers who avoided tripods, shooting everything handheld, did not need permits. I don't know what the law is now in NYC, or in other jurisdictions.)

Okay, so if you only have a few actors, and shoot handheld, you can use city streets without a permit. You'll have people and cars in the background, unrelated to your film, but provided they are too small or blurry to be identifiable, you generally face no legal problems. (But consult a lawyer on this.)

Location problem solved?

But what if you're shooting a period piece? Your story is set in the late 1800s. Sure, the cars and people in the background aren't identifiable, but ... they're cars! And the people are wearing modern clothing!

The Big Studios will simply obtain (and pay for) a shooting permit, and the off-duty police (more money) will kindly block off all streets so they can shoot their period film.

But what if a low-budget filmmaker can't afford that? How then to shoot a period piece on modern city streets?

One solution is a judicious use of framing.

Demon is a low-budget horror film (written and directed by Mark Duffield) set in Victorian London. Fortunately, London is full of old buildings that were around in Victorian times. But it's also full of modern cars and people. How to shoot the architecture, and not the modern population, without closing off the streets?

Duffield solved the problem by framing many street scenes at low angles, so we only see the upper parts of buildings.

At one point, Amy (Clare Langford) takes newcomer Lorcan (Andrew Mullan) on a tour of London. She shows him London Bridge. Today's bridge is normally full of cars, but a low-budget filmmaker can't afford shut down a major bridge. Erasing the cars through CGI effects might be cheaper, but still costly. Duffield simply frames the cars out of view.

Here are a couple of other scenes of Amy showing Lorcan the sights of London. Again, the shots are in low angle. Perhaps to avoid showing modern tourists or cars parked on the streets?

But this framing is not only pragmatic, in that it hides modern life. Demon's framing also serves an aesthetic function. Amy is showing Lorcan (and us, the viewer) the splendor of Imperial Britain's capital city, and he is duly impressed. The low angles effectively convey their emotional awe at the city's sights.

I use the term pragmatic aesthetics to describe whenever a filmmaker applies budgetary and technical compromises to aesthetic effect. This applies to Duffield's framing. He couldn't afford to close off London's streets, nor delete its modern life with CGI, so he framed to hide modern life -- even as his framing simultaneously supports the story, characters, and theme.

But it's not just low angles. Here's a tight shot of Lorcan from a high angle. The tight shot hems him in, so we don't see much beyond him (including modern life). The high angle likewise hides what's beyond him. Were the camera raised, we'd see more of the street, and perhaps some cars.

Then there's the below tight, straight-on angle shot of Lorcan. Again, we see little beyond him.

The staging also serves Demon's low budget. In both of the above shots, Lorcan is static. People walk past him. Pragmatically, this creates the impression of a bustling London street, filled with people -- but on the cheap. Had Lorcan walked along the street, the camera would have followed him, and more of the street would need to have been closed for filming.

The above two frames and staging also serve an aesthetic purpose. Lorcan is paralyzed with fear over the notion that he might be a hideous monster. The above images are from his nightmare. His static staging supports his emotional paralysis. And the tight framing conveys his feeling of being trapped in a very bad situation.

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For more about framing, staging, and pragmatic aesthetics in horror films, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.

Kay Lenz's Performance in The Initiation of Sarah

The Initiation of Sarah (1978) is my favorite horror TV movie from the 1970s -- a decade famous as a Golden Age of horror TV movies. It's a Carrie ripoff, but as occasionally happens, it's better than the original.

As with Carrie, The Initiation of Sarah is about a nerdy girl with psychic powers (Sarah, portrayed by actress Kay Lenz) who is bullied by female classmates. This time it's college, rather than high school, but it's essentially the same story.

Because The Initiation of Sarah is a TV movie (and shot in the more innocent 1970s), it has less gore than Carrie. This means that Sarah must rely on other strengths. Without taking anything away from Carrie's Sissy Spacek, Sarah's greatest asset, among many, is Kay Lenz's performance as the nerdy Sarah.

Lenz's physical appearance, body language, mannerisms, and expressions consistently capture the nuanced timidity of a girl nerd. Consider Sarah maneuvering silently amid the ANS partygoers. (See below clip.) In her dowdy cardigan sweater, the 5'1" Lenz holds herself together, trying to avoid touching anyone as she squeezes past the exuberant taller girls chattering over her. The insecure Sarah strains to be inconspicuous, painfully self-conscious despite the beautiful ANS (Alpha Nu Sigma) girls' obliviousness to her.



It's a short scene, but The Initiation of Sarah is full of such moments when Lenz shines as Sarah. Unfortunately, the above clip seems out of sync, but focus on the visuals and you'll see what I mean.

The one flaw in Lenz's portrayal is when the ANS girls fling mud and vegetables at Sarah, who stands screaming rather than retreat into the house. Most likely, this was Robert Day's direction. A small mistake, in an overall fine job as director. (No, I don't buy that Sarah was "too shocked" to move; I rarely buy that horror's legions of screaming women are too shocked to move whenever a monster lumbers toward them.)

Carrie was remade starring the admirable Angela Bettis, one of the few current actresses who could equal, if not excel, Spacek's performance. I think of Bettis as a female Anthony Perkins; her character in May has a Norman Bates quality. Creepy, yet vulnerable and sympathetic.

It's possible that The Initiation of Sarah was likewise remade, though its DVD description indicates that the producers merely reused the title for an entirely different story. I've not seen this "remake," because most horror remakes of the past 15 years (unlike the ripoffs) have been dreadful, so I can't say for sure.

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For more about the staging and performances of actors in horror, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.