Examples of Thriller openings

How are these thriller openings effective?

Goldeneye

The opening to Goldeneye is full of action throughout. This sets the tone for the rest of the film. We first see the character on top of a dam. This creates suspense as we don’t initially know why he is there. Bond then seemingly gets trapped in a room with people pointing guns at him but as the audience know he is the main character we know he will get out alive but are intrigued to find out how. We see him blow up the Russian base but we want to know why he has done that and what effect it has on the rest of the film.

 

28 Days Later

Compared to Goldeneye there is a lot less action in the opening to 28 Days Later but in terms of creating suspense it is a lot more effective. The first shot of the scene is an extreme close up of the protagonist. This doesn’t reveal to the audience who he is where he is. We then see him walking round the empty hospital and this creates suspense as we don’t know why it is empty and neither does the lead character. The audience and the main character find out things about the new world at the same time. For the rest of the scene we see him walking round the empty London streets past world famous landmarks. This creates tension as the audience see one of the world’s busiest cities and recognisable streets deserted. This again has the audience and the lead character wondering what happened. For the beginning of the scene the only sounds made are made by the man. This gives a sense of vulnerability as it becomes clear he is the only man. For the rest of the scene we have a slow burning non diegetic soundtrack that slowly gets a lot faster and a lot louder. This builds a lot of tension as the music builds we expect something to happen at the end of the scene but this does not materialise.

 

  

Memento 

The opening to Memento is similar to 28 Days Later as the audience find things out at the same time as the protagonist. We do quickly learn that the lead character has a memory problem. However we know little else about what is going on in the scene and this builds suspense as we want to know what happened beforehand to lead to the events that we are seeing.

 

V for Vendetta

At the beginning of the opening sequence of V for Vendetta we don’t see anything but just hear a woman reciting the Guy Fawkes poem. Then we see what appears to be flash back of Guy Fawkes himself trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament. This makes the audience question why the heavy link to Guy Fawkes. The voiceover of the woman continues to talk about a man who she will never forget. This again makes us want to watch the rest of the film to find out who this man is. Later in the opening we see the woman watching the news on the TV the news presenter begins to talk about the Former United States. This poses the question as to what happened prior to when the film is set. We now know that this is a dystopian film. The news presenter then appears to say some very right wing things that are completely different to the Britain of today. This show that there has been a key event before the film was set. This theme continues as we see that there is a curfew in place in London. We then see the lead female being saved by a mysterious man in a mask. This makes the audience want to know why the man is hiding identity and why he is saving the woman. The man then talks but almost every word begins with a V, this makes us wonder why he is doing this. The two characters are the on the roof of a building looking at the Justice statue. The masked character then appears to make music play out of the speakers without touching them. The Justice statue is then blown up amidst a flurry of fireworks and explosions. This all happens on the 5^th of November, the same day that Guy Fawkes attempted a similar thing.