The backlighting within the image is

also very contradictory as it appears

golden and warm, contrasting

against the coldheartedness of killer,

Freddy Krueger. This could be said to

reflect the storyline of the film in a

way; sleep is meant to be a form of

escapism and comfort, but he ruins it

for the characters in the film, just like

he ruins the comfortable, warm, golden lighting in the background.

Lighting

A Nightmare on Elm

Street (2010)Lighting is used for effect in A

Nightmare on Elm Street in the form of

backlighting. The backlighting

creates a silhouette of Freddy, rather

than showing his body and face

clearly, and thus heightening the

element of fear for the audience. This

is because it is a common fear to be

scared of the ‘unknown’ in life, and

since the silhouette makes Freddy

look ambiguous and vague – the

audience can’t see his facial

expression and so can’t judge if he is

coming for them.

The backlighting is also extremely effective in the

sense that it tells the audience the setting is dark

and scary, but also allows them to see a

substantial bit of the setting for themselves. The

way the light shines upon the pipes on the left

wall could also be argued to help create a

creepy feel; by using the lighting to highlight this,

it tells the audience more about the type of

setting which is featured, a large warehouse-type

setting. This will obviously be an extremely hard

setting to escape from, as it will not be an

everyday setting that the audience is familar with

– this heightens the audiences fear for the

characters safety.

Lighting

The lighting used in this still from Orphan is available

lighting. The blue tint within this lighting reflects Esther’s

coldheartedness and twisted facial expression. Blue is a

common shade used when it comes to lighting in horror

films, as it is cold and bleak – just like the antagonists

which feature.

The lighting reflects the change in character in Esther;

throughout Orphan, ambient and artificial lighting are

used. These are the two types of common lighting which

feature in everyday life, and so work in order to create

realism for the audience. However, the change in colour

of the lighting reflects that Esther isn’t pretending to be

an innocent little girl anymore; her true colours, which are

extremely dark, are showing.

The blue lighting

could also be said

to remind the

audience of

lightning; a

dangerous and

powerful natural

element. Esther is

also dangerous and

powerful as an

antagonist, since

she is disguised as a

child and so is able

to worm her way

into families and

destroy them. As

well as this, her

evilness comes

naturally to her,

shown by the

lighting and it’s

similarities to

lightning.

Orphan

Lighting

Halloween

(1978)

Profile lighting is

used in order to tell

the audience more

about the character

of slasher

antagonist, Michael

Myers. Since he is

hiding behind a

mask, it could be

said that the profile

lighting reflects the

two sides of

Michael; the

masked, and

unmasked. The

audience never get

to see the

unmasked Michael

Myers in Halloween,

just like they are

unable to see the

right-hand side of his

face in the image.

Around Michael is artificial lighting,

which creates the profile lighting

effect upon his face. The artificial

lighting around him is not

particularly as bright as you’d

expect, showing the audience that

he has a dark, horrific presence

about himself. It also hints he kills

any form of life around his vacinity,

since light is supposed to represent

joy and life (i.e. The ressurection).

Even though the dark right hand side of his face, due to

profile lighting, tells the audience that Michael has a

dark side, the use of profile lighting almost creates an

air of mystery about him. Since it is a more unusual form

of lighting to feature, it could be argued that Michael is

a more unusual antagonist than other slasher films –

even though he kills his sister on halloween eve, nobody

generally knows what his motives are for wanting to kill

Laurie Strode, since she isn’t promiscous (as his sister,

and many other teenage characters in slashers are).