Deconstruction Task - Babadook Opening Scene

Deconstruction of Babadook opening scene.

Here is a link for the opening scene of Babadook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wpS9otWz9s


The film Babadook is a psychological horror film which was created in 2004 many different editing and sound techniques help to portray the way that it is a psychological horror. In the opening scene the viewer already can tell that it is going to be a psychological horror because there is a woman in a car and there is weird sounds and screams around her that play with the audiences mind to question what was going on.

Non-diegetic sound is used in the opening sound to engage the viewers. The non-diegetic sound that is used is a high pitch sound coming from an unknown source at the very beginning and for a few seconds there is no sound when the opening scene starts the viewer can just see the woman sitting in the car looking distressed and this creates an effect because they cant hear anything the viewer is unable to tell what is going on and then after a few seconds of silence there is a high pitch non-diegetic sound coming from somewhere but the viewers are not sure where the sound is coming from. The high pitch sound creates an effect on the viewer of confusion and eeriness as they don't know where the sound is coming from and why the sound is occurring. After the viewers hear the high pitch sound there is another sound that is created and it is a low quiet sound and it creates the sense that the woman is falling but it also creates confusion upon the viewer as the woman is in a car and she couldn't fall for that long in a car. In the opening scene there is also another use of non diegetic sound after the voice has shouted ''Mum'' there is a spooky sound that is created and the audience don't know what it is and it sounds like voices but it is unclear to the audience once again. All the sound that it used in the opening scene of Babadook is conforming to the fact that it is a psychological horror because it is playing on the audiences mind the sound that is used is creating thoughts upon the viewer about what could be happening.

The camera angle shots that are used reflect the idea of a psychological horror because there is a high angle camera angle used upon the woman in the opening scene and this shows that there is someone above her looking over her and it creates the idea that there is someone in this film who has power over the woman and the audience in the opening scene cannot see who it is so this makes them think and it plays on their mind about what it could be that is above/looking down onto her.

This is a screenshot of the high camera angle:

Also in the opening scene of Babadook a close up shot of the woman's facial expression is shown. The close up shot focuses on the woman's facial expression and it shows the audience that she is obviously distressed and that she is being hurt by someone or something that is happening at the time to her. This conforms to the point about it being a psychological horror because the audience will question why the woman is in pain and creating that facial expression and it will be unclear to them and play on the audiences mind.

This is a screenshot of the close up shot used:

Finally the mise-en-scene that is used in the opening scene of Babadook is very simple. Throughout the opening scene there is the woman in a car and then she falls into her but the mise-en-scene that is used may be simple but it makes the viewers unsure of what just happened to the woman because one minute she was in a car and the next minute she was falling from somewhere and lands on her bed. Also in this scene there isn't any weapons shown or used when she is in distress which conforms to the common representations of a psychological horror.