Deconstruction of 'Halloween' Opening Scene as a Slasher Horror

I think that the opening scene to Halloween (1978) is a typically great example of an original slasher movie, displaying many generic codes and conventions, and effective cinematography to achieve its effect.
The scene begins with two adolescences, alone in the house kissing on the sofa. The dark lighting of the outside establishes that it is night time, and the slow, brief pan over the pumpkin makes the audience aware that it is Halloween; which immediately has spooky and dangerous connotations that set the atmosphere straight away. The entire opening is filmed using a point of view shot in the eyes of the killer, combined with hand held camera movement to make the view seem realistic, unsteady and uncomfortable - which is effective because it makes the audience feel uneasy and very involved and up-close to the action happening right before their eyes. Furthermore, the shot is one smooth cut right up until the unmasking, lacking in any kind of jumpy editing. This makes the scene very seamless and slow paced, building up the tension gradually. 

A lot of low-key lighting is used in the darker areas of the house, creating shadows and casting grey light. Where there are lamps on, the warm light is dim and shadows are lightly spread over some areas, showing how no one else is home, and the rooms are still and empty. Furthermore, as the killer approaches the girl's room with his weapon, mise en scene elements such as her frilly lamp suggest that this girl is sweet and innocent, juxtaposing against her sexual behaviour with her boyfriend and the fact she is wearing a lack of clothing. This helps to achieve the surprise of the attack, and corresponds with typical slasher conventions; such as the first victim who is often promiscuous, and the killer being masked and unidentifiable. 

Lastly, the non-diegetic score is a constant, ringing high pitched shrill, which only faintly changes in key, with accompanying slow piano chords, to build suspense and tension throughout. At the attack. a loud crescendo sounds to enhance the fear and shock of the character, with the eerie ringing continuing right until the end to leave suspense lingering in the scene. The music gets more and more intense toward the end of the scene when the killer (Michael) is unmasked as a little boy, and so to emphasise this uncovering, the score gets louder, drops in key, and the camera zooms put at a high angle to display the small boy with his weapon highlighted in the moonlight. This makes the audience feel shocked, and makes the scene appear much more scarier, although the location is simply in the front garden of a normal house. 

Deconstruction of 'The Ring Two' Opening Scene as a Psychological Horror

Personally, I believed that the opening scene of the film "The Ring 2" recognised and illustrated, many generic conventions of the sub-genre which I investigated, which was psychological horrors: thus decided to deconstruct it.
Initially, the birds eye view of the ocean is an unnatural and strange angle, making the familiar view of the water seem unrecognisable, yet almost daunting; it makes the audience members acknowledge how they will be overseeing the following events and not feel like a character within it to provide assurance, an omniscient view despite having no power to help the victims; moreover, it demonstrates how something deemed unnatural will occur in realistic and natural settings, a common convention of psychological horrors that turns the audience more fearful, believing such events could happen in scenes or areas around them in everyday life.
During the mid shot, which is another method to depict a natural scene, the camera is instead focussed on the video tape to give the audience the significant fear from psychological horrors of everyday objects replacing the concept of weapons; it is filmed from a low angle to depict that it has higher authority than both the audience and characters, automatically confusing the viewer as the background loses focus providing a disorientating effect to add to their current overwhelming state of powerlessness and vulnerability (emotions shared with the female in this scene).
The pan of the room, reflects and establishes how the setting is a conventional big house, with its furnishing of lamps, sofas and drawers, again focussing on everyday life, using more soft furnishings in contrast to the events that will happen in them presents an oxymoron to the audience in order to confuse them. The transition from more soft light from the lamps where diffused light diminishes the outline and clarity of characters, minimises our understanding of them depicting how little we know about them, to the kitchen with low key lighting that uses shadows and darker scales demonstrates the males hidden dark agenda, or his hidden truth which is his curse since the key light which could recognise hope is less bright and does not dominate the setting, whilst illustrating another convention of ordinary people exerting horror on other characters.
The music used, however defeats the the convention of contrapuntal sound, with the non-diegetic score of violins and string instruments complimenting the suspense in the scene to create tension. Furthermore, the character of the female is dressed in light pink with minimal makeup or jewellery, to depict a childlike innocence, which are traits often embodied by victims in psychological horrors to emphasise their vulnerability and receive pity from the viewers.