A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

The credits for the film are written in a normal font in a basic white colour
against a black background. The
use of having white text on a
background is a good
combination as they both
contrast each other. In a way, it
seems as if the white font is
being swallowed by the black
background because the colour
black looks as if it is
overpowering. There is also a contrast because white has connotations of
innocence and purity whereas lack has connotations of danger and death.
Using this contrast of colour could be a way to show the audience that the
connotations of black (danger and death) can be very overpowering. Having a
black colour is a semantic element of horror and meets the audiences
expectations.

One of the firsts shots in this

opening is a close up of
someones shoes, the
audience dont yet know who
this person is and so it makes
us curious. The fact we are
being introduced to this
person just by seeing his feet
conveys the thought of the unknown and not knowing what they are up to.
The person in the shot drags their feet behind them very slowly which could
suggest that they are looking for something.

In this shot we are shown a close

up of what we make out as a
weapon of some sort. This makes
the audience fully aware that this
character is the villain because he
has created this dangerous glove
that has knives attached to it.
This makes the audience determined to know why this person needs a weapon
this lethal and we question who/what he is planning to use it on. The sound in
this scene is mainly the villain breathing heavily and sniggering every so often.
This makes the audience think he is getting excited about something or has
plans to do something mischievous.

Here, the text on the screen is red

and white. The red and white text are
semantic elements of horror both
with very different connotations. Red
has connotations of blood and death
and again, white has connotations of
innocence and purity. These two
colours contrast with each other.
Because the red text is bigger than the white text, it suggests that death and
blood are going to take over innocence and purity during the film.
In this part of the film opening we see a girl dressed in white which again
makes the audience think about
innocence. She is running
frantically down a dark, run down
location. We can tell by the way
she is running and constantly
looking behind her that she is
trying to get away from someone
or something.

In this part of the opening

scene the girl wakes up all of
a sudden and realises that
everything that just
happened to her was a
dream. This creates a big
sense of relief for the
audience because we think
what the girl went through was just a dream and that she is safe now.