Tension within thriller

In film, tension is very important as it engages and creates anticipation for the audience. For thrillers, it is crucial as it helps build suspense and it brings in an aspect of uncertainty to the film, making it more entertaining for the audience.  

An opening sequence to a film that uses tension to help draw in the audience in, is Homecoming. In this sequence, we gradually learn that a boy has been killed and left alone in his house whilst his parents are on holiday. However we only know that he is dead by the end of the sequence. Throughout the whole sequence we are taken around a house whilst an answering machine is playing in the background and as we explore further in the house, the calls start to get more and more intense. It’s also all one shot which puts us in the perspective of someone trying to find him. This adds suspense, making it seem that your the person looking for him which triggers you start to think about where he could be and what had happened to him.

As well as the answering machine, we start to hear some low, dark music, further suggesting that something is not right. There is also an implication of this before we have even seen the first shot. This is when it is just a black screen which may suggest negativity or unhappiness. As well as this, the first call is a from doctor explaining that an appointment was missed so already there was a possible sub conscious element of injury, death or danger before we had even seen anything. They may have also used the black screen in order to gather all of the audiences attention to the missed phone call. This could be because the first call was the most important or because they wanted it to set the tone for the rest of the sequence. This particular idea of the phone machine playing as the camera moves around in the house motivates the audience to ask questions or make assumptions about what may have happened and therefore connecting with them on a deeper level instead of explaining it step by step and making it a lot more basic and obvious a to what had happened.

Cigarets on top of the picture

In this sequence there is also a lot of foreshadowing used to further implicate the main themes of disorder and danger in the film. For example, it is clear that all the mis en scene is mainly pictures of family and messiness like dirty plates and open DVDs left on the floor etc. and the first thing we see is envelopes piled up next to the door which may suggest that a lot of time has past since the last person had been in the house. If you also press pause at one point in the sequence and look closely, you can see a family picture that has been taken down and placed on the sofa. On top of the picture is two cigarettes. As smoking is known for the amount of death it causes, here they could be trying to suggest that someone is going to kill the family. Although the audience may not pick up on these things, they may notice it sub consciously, and that could be what triggers them to predict that there has been a murder. Consequently, there will be a more tense atmosphere in the audience as they’re anticipating a big ending/ climax soon.