SlasherEG3: Last House on the Left

Last House on the left 
(Wes Craven, 1972)

exposition

Budget - 90 k and was an indie production.
 It was made by Wes Craven and his friends and film students. No stars were in this film whatsoever. A common device in slasher films is to use an idiot figure and in this film it is kind of like a family unit with the father figure being the main killer.

opening shot

The denotation of the exposition at the start of the film is white writing with a sans serif font. This writing is chosen to look realistic to a scare audience. It uses fairly conventional media language. The film opens with a pan of an extreme long shot which then cuts to a different part of the environment. It has been a convention of all the slasher openings i have watched so far that it starts with an environment shot and not just the characters. A lot of the exposition is done by showing graffiti. Initially by the protagonists name being on the screen. The quality of the footage on the film isn't very good. Also at the beginning of this film there are some discontinuity editing.

titles

There are very minimal titles, only 6 including the film title being shown. No stars are mentioned because the budget wouldn't have been big enough to hire any. In a lot of the slasher films the reason for a lot of the deaths is due to immoral behaviour and the killer wanting to see them punished for something they may have done. Unlike a lot of slasher films it uses a lot of long takes and limited shot variety, this is probably also down to the lack of money.

titles

In the opening there is also an extreme close up of a neclace 'magical object'. This is a very significant part of the mise-en-scene.

Here is the whole of the first part: