Films: Vacancy and The departed

Film: Vacancy – thriller
Sub-genre – horror
The film vacancy is directed by Nimród Antal who had a budget of $19,000,000 to create this film. It includes the actors Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale and Frank Whaley. The plot of the film is a young married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.

The titles at the beginning are all in red this may represent danger as they are dark colours, the titles also stretch in size which makes the audience think of dripping blood, this is an effective way and may give a clue to the audience that there may be blood, gore and deaths. The title has an urban effect to it which looks a bit like graffiti. The background music is intense and increases in speed which builds suspense within the audience living them to wonder what the opening to the film will be. The opening scene to the film we know that this is set in California because we see a licence plate reading California on it.

There is faint background music whilst we see the car driving on the road. A typical road scene that is used what has been included in this film is a car driving along, dodges an animal, nearly causing a fatal road accident, which makes the audience think what might happen next. Whilst driving there are dark surroundings with night time noises e.g. an owl this effect helps build suspense to the moment. There us just a car in the middle of a road in the middle of know where which gives the impression something bad is going to follow later on.

The two people in the car cannot pick up any radio stations, which implies they are isolated from society and are very much alone. When we first see the characters their faces are partly hidden so the audience can’t see their whole face and when the couple starts talking to each other, the audience can clearly see there is tension between the two of them; much deeper than the average couple. The male jokes about a bit and both call each other a rude name, which proves the point they both have several issues maybe because of something that has happened in the past. Wide angled shots are used on the couple which shows the separation between them one person on one side of the car and the same but for the other person.

There are no shots/frames where we can see the couple in the car looking at each other; they are constantly looking else where. Throughout the opening of Vacancy there is a reoccurring image of the male in the car who keeps rubbing his eyes which implies tiredness, which makes the audience wonder whether there will be an accident due to this.

Film: The Departed – thriller
Sub-genre – Gangster

The film The Departed is directed by Martin Scorsese had a budget of $90 million to create this film. It includes the actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone, Anthony Anderson and Alec Baldwin. The plot of the film is two men from opposite sides of the law are undercover within the Massachusetts State Police and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made, and the moles are dispatched to find out their enemy's identities.

The opening to this film begins with violence a fight has broken out so straight into the film there is action which may startle the audience because they might have not been expecting violence for the opening scene. The character that appears to have a bad personality is seen in dark scenes and you can’t really see his face which disguises what he looks like and is hiding the film uses the surrounding shadows to cover his face.

The music in the background is faint to begin with then becomes louder which builds suspense for the audience leaving them thinking what might happen next. The young lad we first see sitting in a public place has an innocent face and looks quite emotional which makes the audience feel sorry for this young lad. The setting to this film is in Boston which includes fighting as we saw from the opening and from what we have seen this makes us believe there may be corruption between the characters in The Departed.