June 19, 2021

Another perfect pairing of sound & vision - Ghost Ship


Nothing beats a good tonal change in a film. It's even better if that change arrives 3 mins and 15 seconds into the film. 

It's 1962. The MS Antonia Graza is sailing across a smooth sea. The mood is good, the food and wine are flowing. A song called Senza Fine is being sung by Francesca Rettondini. Everyone is happy, life really couldn't be better. Even the pink, fluffy font used in the credits is designed to anaesthetise you with it's wholesomeness and maybe even make you think it might just be a romance with supernatural overtones.

Then this happens.

 

Stunned silence. Everyone's frozen. It's confusing. What happened? Why is everything so quiet? Then it turns hellish. The films goes from flowery to gory in seconds. The cert goes from U to 18 in the blink of an eye. The music's dead. So's everyone else. Now the screaming can start.

Hands down the best opening scene to any horror film this century. A perfect pairing of sound & vision. Who cares if the rest of the film sucks when this 5 minutes is so damn effective.

Previous pairings

Beetlejuice

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