Chase Scenes

Chase Scenes

  I wanted to deconstruct some chase scenes from horror movies, so that we would be able to intergrate some of the camera angles that they used to portray the "chase".

Case 39

The first scene I looked at was from the movie "Case 39". The chaser is the young girl, whilst the victim is the grown woman.

  Before the chase even starts, they show a shadow looming over the doorway, which signifies the presence of something evil, and they make use of a low shot with very low lighting to emphasize the shadowing.

 Here they use middle shot of the girl, whilst you can see the victim being terrified by the girl in front of her. Due to the girl standing it front, it clearly shows that the dominance is in the little girl's presence. This shot also shows the setting, so that the audience can imagine where the woman will run off to.

  This is a classic shot, where the victim will run behind a door, and lock everything, whilst pulling chairs and tables to block the table. They make use of close up shots, so that we can see everything that the woman is doing to protect herself very clearly.

 They then use a high angle camera shot which looks down onto the woman, this shows the vulnerability of the woman, and the terror that she is feeling, as she is not looking straight into the camera, but in front of her at the door.

  Here the camera angle is from a low point of view, so that it gives a more eerie feel to the girl, especially the angle that she is bending her body, and the evil look that she is giving to the camera. It also shows that it is not a normal way to travel across the floor.

American wolf in London

The second movie I looked at was "American Wolf in London" and this is less of a supernatural horror film, but it uses very good angles for the chase scene since they never reveal the actual "chaser" but it take the angle from the chaser and some point of view shots.

 The focus of the lens is on the hole, where all the animal noises are coming from, and the guy is taking notice of the noise, and is looking at the hole, which in turn, directs the audience's focus to the tunnel aswell.

 Here, the camera angle is in the point of view of the "wolf" and they shake the camera a bit, so that it would imitate the movement of a canine. It slowly pans over the corner until the man is in view, which shows the coming horror.

 The man and the tunnel is centered in the camera shot, and it almost gives an illusion due to the way that the tunnel is shaped. It also only shows on corner, so that we know that that is the only way the man can run away from.