Insidious – Title Sequence Analysis

Insidious – Title Sequence Analysis

In the beginning of the title sequence for Insidious the camera track down on a lamp, we then see the camera tilt and the text tilt the opposite way. This makes the setting seem “off”  and makes the viewer uneasy about what we see. The camera tracks down and moves along a boy’s bedroom. The high angle in the shot along with how the camera moves(slowly) make it seem like someone is watching the oy and we are looking from that perspective. The camera continues to track along down a hallway where we see a woman in the dark holding a candle. We don’t see who this is at first and the camera moves in slowly, all in one shot, to create tension. This tells us that it is a thriller or a horror movie.

The next thing we see is the title pop up and flicker in the darkness.
The typeface used looks evil because it looks like it has forked tips like a snake’s tongue or the devil’s tongue/horns. The text is also red like blood and sharp and pointed like blades. All of these small details make this typeface a good fit for a horror film.

After the title, the rest of the sequence is shots of parts of the house, the shots are often from a really low or high angle or from behind a corner to nake it seem like someone is sneaking around the house. The shots are very dark toward the edges in a vignette style, this is used to make the shots seem claustraphobic and to also obscure the viewers vision to create tension, the viewer doesn’t know what is going on around them.

There is use of a canted angle to similar effect as the one at the beginning of the title sequence to make the viewer feel uneasy.
In some of the shots there are shadows or footprints just barely visible. In one shot there is a shadow overlooking the stairs this makes us think some one is being watched or followed and also could represent the genre of because there is an enigma because we don’t know who this is and why they are in the house, common in the horror genre.

The soundtrack in this sequence is eerie and sounds like a slow screeching. When the title for the film comes up the screeching gets more intense and then dies down and gets slower again for the rest of the sequence. The soundtrack fits well because it creates tension, it builds up and crescendos at the title to shock the viewer.
The credit text has an effect where the “ghost” of the text floats upwards, this fits within the horror genre and potentially hints that the film has ghosts in.