Halloween Opening Scene Analysis

When looking at the movie cover of Halloween, you first feel terror. The fire, masked figure, and apparent suffering in the still images make you naturally feel uneasy. You are then drawn to the caption, Evil Has a Destiny. If you weren’t feeling uneasy already, this caption should do it. It brings up questions and makes you want to know the answer. This visual is effective in instilling a feeling of mystery, it does this through not showing the face of the figure, scrambling scenes from the movie, and giving a vague setting.
There is a very sharp contrast between the shadowy figure and the firey face in the background. Like stated before this brings up questions and uses an emotional appeal. Is that the man’s face? Is that someone else? What does it have to do with Holloween? People like to have clear cut answers and this cover is the complete opposite of that. Things are cut and scrambled and it is hard to make out what is going on. This makes the person seeing it want to go watch the movie to find out all of the questions that came to them when they saw the cover.
When you are viewing the shadowing figure you can see that he has a knife in one hand and what seems to be a mask in the other. The knife could show that the man is a killer and the mask could be used to hide his identity. However, it could be linking the figure to the firy
The setting is black with the red background which gives a dark and ominous feel. Also, there is a house on the right side but a forest on the left. You don’t know if it takes place at the house or the forest. Forests are often used in horror films as the location for where death happens. Also in literary works trees or forests can be a symbol of sin or death. For example the tree in the story of Adam and Eve or in the Scarlet Letter. The house shown also gives has an ominous feel, it is dark and doesn’t really have any distinct