The Shining Opening Sequence - Sound and Credits

The Shining is a psychological horror film that has a simple yet effective opening sequence. The sound used creates a uneasy, tense atmosphere that contrasts with the picturesque scene of the hills and lake. The credits are simple and cannot be missed as the flow over the screen.

This sequence has effected our group opening sequence as it has given us ideas for music and credits. The music is low, simple and repetitive similar to the one that we made for our opening. It is tense and creates a sense of mystery and enigma about the place the sequence is shot. The low and deep sounding piece of music helps represent the psychological horror genre in a different way by using sound effects such as the strange high pitch noises that can be heard in the clip from 1:25 onwards. If the music was happy and upbeat it would portray a different genre therefore the music suits the current situation perfectly: mysterious music to match a unknown location that the audience is unfamiliar with.


The credits are a soft blue that roll over the scene like end credits usually do at the end of the film. These credits are incredibly simple especially when they are compared to credits in films such as Zombieland where the credits smash when touched:



Although the Zombieland credits are interesting and entertaining to watch the simplicity of The Shining's credits is just as effective as it achieves what credits are suppose to do. They simply inform the audience of the key details in the film. This will be similar to our credits as we are unfamiliar with the program After Effects we will make simple credits which we were unhappy with at first  but after watching The Shining opening sequence we saw that it could match our genre.