Trick or Treat Opening Analysis

Title: Trick or Treat
Director: Charles Martin
Year Produced: 1986

Trick or Treat begins with a DEG ident.

A male voice over begins reading lines from Doctor Faustus as the title and credits play. The title Trick or Treat is on a black background and is in a font similar in style to fonts used by quite a few 1980s rock and heavy metal bands logos. This signifies that hard rock/heavy metal music might have in important role in the film. There are then credits in an off-white, capitals serif font on a black background which play until 48 seconds into the film. The last two names to be credited are Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne which provides further anchorage that hard rock/heavy metal music will be influential to the film.

The credits quickly fade out to black and it cuts to an image of a metal musician against a black background. A hard rock song begins to play and the camera zooms out to show the image to be a poster in a bedroom wall. The camera then moves through the room to show books on rock, a calender with a band as the picture, a black leather belt with studs, a skull etc. Everthing signifies that the person whos room it is is really into that kind of genre of music and likes to try and dress like his idols.

The shot then overlaps into a similar type of shot showing more posters of bands such as Anthrax and Ozzy Osbourne which signifies the time period to be in the mid to late 80s. The camera then continues to move around the room showing more memorabilia and overlapping into another shot which does the same. The camera eventually reaches a long shot of a boy, with long black hair and dark clothing, lying on his bed writing a letter. The music gets quieter and a voice over comes on. He is saying what he is writing. He begins by saying 'its me again, Ragman' which signifies that he writes to this person quite often and it also tells the audience what the character calls himself. He then goes on to say 'its them against us. I cant believe the cancelled your halloween concert' which signifies that he sees the person that he is writing to as similar to himself, and that the person hes writing to is likely to be a fairly successful performer. It then cuts to a long shot of the poster which was shown at the start, the focus then changes to be on the boy. This signifies that the person he is writing to is the man on the poster and someone that the boy idolises.

The voice over and music continue playing and there is an audio bridge as the scene overlaps to a medium long shot of teenagers walking up some stairs indoors carrying some books. This signifies that it is in a school setting. The camera then pans across to show the boy sitting under the stair with his arms crossed.

Next it cuts to a medium close up of the boy stood reading a magazine, with a picture of Motley Crue on the back, in a corridor. This is the first time you get to properly see the boy in a good light. He is wearing headphones around his neck and is wearing a denim jacket with a skull pin and guitar pin on it. This provides more anchorage of the boys personality and style.

It then cuts to a long shot of a girl walking down the corridor who he likes, she waves, it cuts back to the medium close up of the boy who waves back thinking that she's waving at him, and it then cuts back to a medium shot of the girl and the camera pans as it follows her walking past the boy to her friend. It ends on an over the shoulder medium close up of the boy, showing the girl and her friend starting talking and the boy looking awkward. The voice over then stops for a short while. It then cuts to a two shot of him eating his lunch with a geek who is represented in this way by wearing large glasses, a shirt and his hair. The main character then drinks his milk but it goes over him as someone has put a hole in the carton. It cuts to show the people who did it laughing at him. All of this signifies that he isn't liked and people bully him.

It then cuts to a medium close up of him walking down the coridor, it cuts to a point of view shot and the same people who put a hole in his milk mess up his hair. This allows you to see the people better and they are represented as jocks by them wearing jeans and a varsity jacket or a jacket with its collar up and trainers. It then cuts back to the medium close up of the main character with his messed up hair and him looking annoyed.

Next it cuts to show shower tiles and the camera tilts down to show the boy in the shower (at school). It cuts to show him walking through the changing rooms with just a towel round his waist and when he gets to his locker the jocks are looking at his stuff and taunting him with it. He then gets pushed through a door as another jock takes his towel off him. It cuts to an extreme long shot of some girls playing volleyball in a sports hall and they turn around to look at him. So hes naked in a sports hall with loads of girls looking at him and he tries to get back through the door but it has been locked/held shut by the jocks.

It cuts to a medium close up of one of the girls and she looks like she has an idea. She runs to get a camera and as the other girls laugh at him, she takes pictures. He looks gutted and then it cuts to a medium long shot of one of the girls and as the camera zooms in on her she goes from laughing to looking sorry for him. The voice over begins again as he drops against the door.

There is then an overlap to a shot of his room again, with the poster of his idol in the center of the screen. This adds importance to the man in the poster. The camera tilts down to show the boy still writing his letter. This allows the audience to realise that what they had seen was a flashback of what the boy was writing about. It then cuts to another shot of the poster and the camera zooms in as the voice over says 'the one things that holds me together is you'. This anchors that the boy is writing to him. He then says 'you did it man. You went to this fucking school and you rose above it. Now youre on top, and you can just look down at the anthill and smile'. This provides the audience with exposition of why the main character idolises him, because he can relate to him. The boy finishes off his letter and tears of the page.

It cuts to a close up of the boys hands holding an envolope addressed to Sammi Curr. This is the first time that the audience actually finds out the idols name. I think that they manage to do this well as the audience already knows who the letter is to with use of mise-en-scene and shot variation, and by telling the characters name through it saying it on a letter is quite subtle and it just adds a name to a face for the audience instead of the film just providing obvious exposition about the character which wouldn't of been as effective.

The music fades out and the opening ends.

The opening is 5 minutes 34 seconds.