Creep (2004)

As this is a more modern, British film, I found it easier to relate to. The opening shot is a handheld shot, with a point of view of someone who is heavily panting over the top. There is some distorted music, which adds to the suspenseful opening. Eventually, we head down the familiar escalators of a London underground tube station, where the shot cuts to a women standing against a wall with her eyes shut.

The inter-titles have the background of the London underground map, however the colours have been switched to a yellow and black, whilst the text flickers, possibly to suggest faulty electricity.

We then discover, through the help of the woman's acting and the inter-titles reading 'missed the last train home?' that this woman is stuck in the underground station, with no way out, therefore isolating her from the outside world and making her more vulnerable.

As she is on a pitch black carriage the music switches and the inter-title reads 'don't worry, you're not alone'. This tells us that there is something not quite right and introduces the horror and fear. A man's hand appears from under the train, covered in blood, he lifts only his head up and utters "run" to the woman, kick starting the plot and fear.

Shots of conventional horror features, like rats and dark tunnels, begin to fade in and out at the same tempo as the sound of a heart beat, being played over the top. This pulls the audience in more and creates more suspense as the shots have fastened.

Another distorted sound is put on a quick loop as we feel as though the monster is getting closer and beginning to hunt. A lot of shots of people running and other conventional horror shots are added to a montage of quickly edited shots during this time, including shots of a knife being picked up, feet being dragged along the ground and someone crawling along the floor.


There is a particularly good shot when a man is standing in the carriage way, facing the woman, when two bloody hands grab his head from above him. I found this effective as we do not necessarily expect an attack from above as oppose to from behind or even below, the shock factor and as this is unusual it will feed more fear into the audience.

The title is once again yellow and flickering, to reinforce the setting at the end of the trailer. All the way throughout this trailer, the level of realism carriers a constant flow of fear.

The end shot uses Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposition; we see a toy doll continuously playing a high pitched sound, yet the sound and image produced by this innocent object constructs further fear into the audience from this trailer. We are given the second shot of someone crawling across a concrete floor, as we are once again shown the image of the knife being picked up by someone wearing a green apron, an item that is usually worn by butchers when chopping meat, we hear a female cry "please don't hurt me" as the man proceeds to walk.