Arlington Road (thriller sequence)

How is suspense created in the film you watched in class?

The film sequence i will be discussing is Arlington Road (1999).

By watching the first few minutes of the film which was the title sequence, I established that it was a thriller movie through the sounds, camera, mise en scene and editing.

Firstly, there were a few static images shown of a suburban village which is most probably of Arlington Road, a town in America which shows normality. It was quite difficult to make out as they are in inverted colours and these images only stayed on the screen for a second. Some images stood out clearly, such as fences, and the front yard of a house which portrays safety and it could also imply that it could be a deserted area. The fast pace images change to images such as an angry dog barking in a cage which gives off the impression that this suburban area has been disturbed by something or someone. The images then seem to have a lot of red colours showing, hinting 'bloody' images. There were also images of 3 young girls in white dresses portraying innocence, and with the colour red being injected into these shots implies danger with the innocent. The fast pace montage gives it the thrilling feel to movie with non-diegetic sinister sounds playing over it with added unrecognisable voices. The use of the hand held camera contributes to the unsafe atmosphere of the suburban area. The titles are abstract and blurred which works well with the red colour over the images making the audience suspicious.