AHS opening credits deconstruction

AHS – Hotel deconstruction

Credits

The opening credits I am deconstructing are from American Horror Story Hotel. This is in the horror genre and is an example of how opening credits can be used to identify the genre.

Mise-en-scene

The opening credits start with a shot of two hands pulling apart a wall as if they are trying to escape from that room. The hands are old, dirty and the wall is easy to pull apart suggesting it is old and the person has been in there for a long time. The shot changes slightly so that it looks as if we are looking through a peephole at the hands until one of the hands breaks free.

We the see the first piece of typography which tells us the production company. After this there are five fast flickering shots on blood running over the floor, someone scrubbing blood off the floor, another person cleaning blood off a wall, blood dripping down the wall and then back to the person scrubbing the floor. This contributes to the idea of the sub-genre being slasher as there is lots of blood.

Next we see a room with an ugly bald person and a young woman on a chaise-lounge. The use of a chaise-lounge adds to the idea of what we now know to be a hotel being old as hotels these days do not have these in the rooms.

Following the first shot there are multiple shots of the women in the room all based around the old furniture. The next shot shows a young boy leaning through a door way into a corridor. The walls of this corridor are peeling and the floor is wood that has been worn down and not taken care of suggesting the hotel was abandoned a long time ago.

We then return to the room where the women were and there is a skeleton on the chaise-lounge which further illustrates the slasher/horror genre as it gives the impression that someone died, also the woman in white walking out of shot suggests she killed the other woman.

The following shot is a close up of the brush that was being used in a previous shot on the floor next to some blood. Quickly it changes to a high angle shot looking down at a young girl standing with the brush on the blood stained floor. This conforms to the convention of using children in horror films.

Screenshot 00:18

There is then a moment where a shot of the young girl, behind some bars that look like they might be the end of a bed, flickers which builds suspense also contributing to the horror genre.

The next shot is of a woman in black shorts with skin colour tights with black seams and high heels, leaning on a wall facing away from the camera. The way she is dressed compared to the woman in white we saw near the beginning suggests she is not someone from the same background but possibly a prostitute that made money in this hotel before it was left to ruin.

There is then a shot of another woman asleep on a bed in her underwear with suspenders and a white open top. There are then a pair of hands that come from out of the bed and grab the woman. This suggests the bed has a problem with whatever she has done in the hotel and disagrees with it, therefore punishes her.

Screenshot 00:21

Screenshot 00:21 (hands)

Over the rest of the opening credits there are eight different shots dispersed throughout of the characters we have seen previously climbing out from inside one of the beds in the hotel. The bed has stitches that makes it look as though it has been repaired multiple times before suggesting they frequently climb out of beds giving us a possible reason as to why the hotel was abandoned.

There is then references back to the young boy who is now running down the damaged corridor, the women with the old fashioned furniture, the woman leaning on the wall now has blood gushing out from her hands and down the wall, the woman in suspenders and a woman screaming and putting on lipstick (not well) suggesting she is being forced to and so she does not care about doing it neatly. The opening credits end with a medium shot and a high angle shot of a young person in a gas mask which conforms to the common conventions of the horror genre having an unknown killer.

Typography

The typography in the opening credits for hotel doesn't really contribute to the horror genre however it does add to the hotel idea as the text looks like the LED signs that budget hotels used to have.

The background to these shots can only be seen in the glow of the LED light, it looks like old fashioned wallpaper that you might see in a hotel which backs up the plot line of it being set in a hotel.

Sound

The sound in the first six seconds of the opening credits for American Horror Story Hotel is quiet and only has low pitch synthesised non diegetic sound. At 00:07 violins start playing, this is in reference to the style of hotel it used to be as they probably had classical music playing that would involve violins. The non diegetic soundtrack is repetitive and builds at the end when the title is shown. The sound conforms to the common conventions of this genre as the synthesised sounds are creepy and build suspense.

Evaluation

There are not many aspects from American Horror Story that I can use as inspiration for my coursework because it is a different genre. We are going to be making a drama film opening where as this is a clip from a horror genre. I like the idea of separate stories coming together because they have one thing in common, in this case the hotel.