Vacancy Opening Analysis

The introduction of Vacancy has been called one of the best and most effective thriller openings that has been seen, it's use of typography and colours is advanced for it's type of film, and has been studied by many different people over the yeas it's been around.


When it comes to camera shots in the car it is fairly limited but this is used to good effect when paired with the pitch black of the rest of the screen, for instance when there is dialogue you are totally focussed on what the characters are saying and also their facial expressions to go with it. It also makes use of the 'thirds' rule, which is when it's said that you pay more attention to something in the left or right third of the screen, so in the majority of shots the characters faces are in the pitch black of the screen on either the left or the right. Also it works with the idea of being trapped being a convention of a thriller. It gives an almost claustrophobic feel which works well in focussing on the character and then you are brought back into the real world in the car. Also the idea of being trapped and not being able to see is a large part of a thriller convention and this works well as the only source of light we have is coming from the car headlights. In the opening titles a fast moving camera movement is used which gives it a really fast paced feel which almost 'pumps you up' for the first scene which is actually quite slow in comparison.


The main talking point of the opening are the opening titles at the very beginning, firstly the style of having the credits at the start of the film is something tat was a lot more common in older films, so this could be considered as the director Nimrod Antal trying to go back to the Alfred Hitchcock, Kubrickian times where it was believed real thriller/horror pictures peaked. 
The red text used could most easily signify blood, but it can also represent anger, hatred, violence or even love, which surprisingly are ideas that go hand in hand case in point Romeo and Juliet. The scratches could most easily be shown to represent a killers strikes upon his victim, and this paired with the quick camera movements could represent the killer moving quickly from victim to victim.
At the end of credits they all come together to form a maze which moves well with the next scene to which the main male protagonist has become lost. Also throughout the film the couple get stranded in a maze like system of tunnels, moving from room to room in and out of danger.