Another scene analysis gives me an opportunity to build off of a previous post about the subconscious dream state in A Nightmare on Elm Street. The monster in the film “Freddy” preys on victims while they are dreaming. So to make the connection between the dream state and how people are killed I will use Tina’s death scene from the film. The scene begins by our victim Tina settling in for a good nights sleep with her boyfriend. As Tina lays in bed trying to fall asleep the camera snaps out into the street. The camera starts low on the ground focusing up at Tina’s house. In the center of the shot is her bedroom window. The camera elevates and moves toward the window slowly. This effect makes it feel as if someone or something is slowly making its way into the house or bedroom which the victim rests. It zooms and elevates all the way until it gets right up into the window and then moves inside on our sleeping victim. This signifies that the evil made its way to the house and is now inside the bedroom. She lays in bed as she hears the sound of pebbles being thrown against the window. Each time she pays a little more attention to it and she tries to wake her boyfriend which is no luck. She gets up and puts on nothing but her boyfriends shirt and moves to the window. We get a side shot of Tina standing in the window as pebbles continue to hit until the window cracks and as she looks out into the street you hear someone faintly whisper her name. The camera flashes to another room of the house where her best friend is sleeping. We got a point of view shot from the edge of her bed as if we were standing at the foot of the bed. In the wall you begin to see something slowly emerge from the wall. As it moves out more and more you begin to see the impression of two hands with a face in between. It continues to come out until you can recognize the object as our monster. I like the effect of the monster coming out of the wall. It makes it seem as if Freddy is peering into the bedroom to see either a sleeping girl who he looks at or to make sure he is going for the right victim. I also like the effect because it reiterates the effect of that evil making its way into the house. Now we know Freddy is inside and is looking for his victim. As the sleeping girl opens her eyes Freddy disappears back into the wall and she pulls a crucifix off her night stand. She looks at the crucifix and hangs it up over her bed right in the spot where Freddy poked his head through. It almost gives you a false sense of hope in the fact that god will help her. Moving back onto Tina the camera shows her standing inside the kitchen window looking out into the back yard where the pebbles were coming from looking for the perpetrator. She flicks on the porch light and opens the door faintly asking if anyone is in there. She starts walking and the camera tracks at a diagonal so you move slowly into a close up of her face. She hears whispers coming from the dark alley and follows them. She walks out into the alley and picks a direction to look. From behind her a garbage can lid is rolled out of the fog to make her turn around. The victim whirls around and the camera looks down the alley at a large all white garage. As we are forced to look at this garage a large silhouette of Freddy moves onto the garage door which functions almost as a projector screen. At this point we know its on. The camera focuses on her terrified face and then back to a slow moving Freddy who is hobbling towards her. He is backlit so you can see nothing but a black figure moving at you. His knives on hand screech against a metal door piercing the silent night. Our victim prays to god as he moves toward her. Suddenly his face is lit from underneath and he mutters “This is God”. She turns to start running and we get a shot from down the alley so we can see her in nothing but a plain white men’s button up shirt being chased by an almost entirely black figure. The camera follows her as she runs past us and right into the arms of the monster. She takes off running into the backyard from which she came and we get the same shot that we had when she was going out to the alley. From behind a tree, which is no more than 7 inches wide the monster jumps out of thin air. This illusion is truly frightening in the sense that for the times it was very innovative and that we now know our monster can teleport at will. We then see our monster Freddy raise his hand without knives and demands her to watch him. He then cuts off two of his five fingers and lets green liquid squirt out while having this creepy smile on his face. She screams and runs but is not match for Freddy as he grabs her right before she gets inside. He tackles her into a pile of garbage cans and we lose sight of them and are transported back to the bedroom in real time. She is totally covered by the blankets and struggling and screaming. Her boyfriend wakes up astonished and jumps out of bed. He rips off the covers to show nothing more then his girlfriend, no Freddy. As she struggles on the bed Freddy rips her shirt open and slashes her chest with his knives. It then gives us the boyfriend perspective as she is levitated in thin air and dangled. She get dropped to the floor then dragged up the wall and ceiling slowly. She is apparently being raped and stabbed while she struggles and her boyfriend watches helplessly. She then is dropped after a brief struggle back onto the bed in a pile of blood and rolls onto the floor lifeless and naked. Her friend wakes up in the next room and rushes to her aide only to find the mutilated body and the boyfriend nowhere to be found.
There are several things which I like about the scene and that I feel make it unique and effective. First the shot moving from the street to the bedroom and then having Freddy look into the other bedroom is an effective one. This shows the audience that something was coming to get someone and then makes it known when Freddy shows himself. The second thing I like is a technique the film uses multiple times when beginning a dream murder scene. The victim in the upcoming scene always is going to sleep and then in an instant the scene can switch from real life to dream without knowing it. For example Tina was lying in bed calm and quiet and then something started taping the window. There is no definite signal of moving from real life to dream and I think that helps in making the scenes more unexpected. The last thing I like is the shot of Freddy’s shadow/silhouette onto the white garage. His shadow is magnified many times making him seem like a giant. Also he remains unseen while his shadow remains seen and that is creepy. It also gives the definite signal to the audience that you are now in the victims dream and Freddy is here. THe link to the scene is at the bottom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=609GY6-QDSg&feature=related
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