Stephen King's IT (1990, Tommy Lee Wallace)

This film, based on Stephen Kings hit novel in 1978, is a typical thrilling and mysterious horror film.
In this opening, mise-en-scene helps to build tension, set the scene for the rest of the movie. There is a young child’s doll, a tricycle, washing line, abandoned house, etc, many of which are conventions of a horror film. The camera techniques used, create mystery and also are cleverly constructed and edited to put fear into the audience. For example when the young child is being called towards the washing line by the clown, there is a sudden extreme close up which on lasts a second on the clowns face, which comes as a shock to the audience as it is unexpected, and instantly creates the feeling of mystery and uneasiness. There is no soundtrack in the background, just the sound of the harsh wind and lightening, and also the sound of the young girl singing as she rides into her house on a tricycle. This is another connotation on a typical horror film, as it shows the naivety of the child, that she has no idea what’s going on as she is just singing, and also the sound of the song gives quite a sinister feel to the movie. Three characters are introduced in this opening sequence, the clown (obvious baddy) the young naive child, and also the child’s mother. We learn that the clown is a creepy, nasty individual due to his sinister smirk when his face flashes on screen, and also this is made clear due to the fact he is prying on this young innocent girl. The girls innocence is portrayed through her clear naive facial expressions and the way that it is clear from her body language that she is unaware that the clown is about to kill her.
The audience is positioned as if a fly on the wall watching over the situation. Continuity editing has been used, making smooth transactions between each shot, and scene change. The narrative is structured in a way that we firstly see the young naive girl, followed by her mother going inside the house (making the audience aware that the girl is outside now alone) and then this is when the clown begins to talk to the child. Pathetic fallacy has been used, as in one of the opening shots it shows lightening in the sky, and then as the mother calls the girl into the house, just before her killing, it starts to rain. Identification and alienation are both clearly used in this opening sequence. Most of the opening sequence is spent watching the girl as she cycles through her neighbourhood, back into her house and into her garden. We can begin to identify, and like her in this time, watching her sing and happily ride around. However, we only see the clown for 2seconds maximum throughout this opening, this creates alienation towards him as we do not get any screen time with him to develop any sort of liking towards him. Tension is created in this beginning sequence through the use of camera angles and pathetic fallacy as we know that something bad is going to happen. Also the sharp, snappy, unexpected shots of the bad clown creates fear and tension in the audience as we are then ready and almost watching in anticipation in case the clown pops up again.
A normal middle class family are represented in this opening sequence, with children out in the neighbourhood on bikes, a mother flitting around with washing, and the washing line up in the garden. In the very opening credits, the colours used are black, white and red. The red clearly represents blood and death here. There are photos of creepy houses, and young children being shown at the beginning which to me represents as if someone has collected these all together and is watching them, analysing them and picking their next victim.
This film is rated 15, and i think is aimed at people from the age 15 to 35. The probable reading of this text is killer clown out to kill young children, trying to be stopped. However some could argue that it encourages violence within young children as a critic of any violent film could say. I think the readings of this text are pretty straight forward and would be read the roughly the same from people aged 15 through to much older ages and generations.

This film contains a man who dresses up as a clown and murders children. The fact that a clown is the murderer, evokes the idea of childhood fears and that there is more depth to people than what first appears. It's ironic that children are meant to laugh at clowns, and be entertained by them but here the clown is the killer.