The suspense! In The Stepfather.

List three examples in the boxes below and note down:

*What happens in the scene 

*And what makes it suspenseful. 

Example 1:

When the "Step dad" has a beard in the beginning of the film- (opening sequence) and everything seems to be normal and he looks like a normal man, until he suddenly begins to dye his hair and then cut his beard, which can be a little suspicious and makes the audience wonder if he is trying to hide or change his identity and then the suspicion becomes a little bit stronger when he takes out a pair of coloured contact lenses to reveal that he has blue eyes instead of brown. 

After that he goes downstairs. into the kitchen and makes himself a cup of coffee and some toast, listening to some Christmas songs on the radio. During this moment, the camera shows angles which allow the audience to see the pictures inside the frames that are around the house, which raises more suspicion as they are of small children and a woman, yet none of him. 

Whilst all of this is happening, it never occurred to me that anything was going to "pop out" (so to speak) because they had set such a normal setting, until the camera shows clips of dead bodies that are the same faces of the families in the pictures around the house. That are all scattered around the house with all different tyes of wounds on them, such as stab wounds and gun shot wounds. 

The step father then casually leaves the house, as if he cannot see the dead bodies that are all around the house. 

Its suspenseful because of the normality of the entire scene, to then suddenly be shown a whole family murdered by this man who acts so sane. Its just a shock to the audience and so has a suspenseful effect. 

Example 2:

The scene when David (The step dad) is suffocating the families real dad, Jay in the cellar is one of the most suspenseful scenes- in my opinion, as the eldest son, Micheal goes half way down the stairs whilst looking for David and then stops cautiously to call out Davids name, I was at the edge of my seat in this scene as you knew that if Micheal saw what David was doing, he would have been killed as well, and through out the film so far, the audience had already developed an emotional attatchemnt to the charcater as he is the main charcter in the film. 

The effect of the irony in this scene was sort of cruel, since Micheal and Jay were just about getting a better relationship as father and son and then Micheal was left thinking that Jay never turned up to say goodbye before he was supposed to be going on a business trip abroad- when he was actually so lose to where his father was being murdered and so it gave me a mixture of a feeling; 

Half of me wanted him to go downstairs and possibly save his dad.

Yet at the same time, I wanted him to turn around and go back upstairs because of the risk of him getting killed himself.

Example 3:

Another suspenseful moment which used false plateau was when David (Step dad) killed the old lady who warned his fiance about the wanted posters and the resemblance of David in the police sketches. Even though the mum (Step dads fiance) didn't believe it, the step dad took no chances and went over to the old ladies house and threw her down the stairs, and then suffocated her by blocking her nose and mouth so she couldn't breath. 

The scene started with the old lady in the garden, when the doorbell rings, and so she goes to answer the door but no one is there. She then goes back towards the garden again when one of her many cats (Black cat) acts strange and so the old lady follows the cat, wondering what is bothering it. When she finally calms it down after it hissing and hiding in a wardrobe, she closes the wardrobe (Which happens to be a mirrored wardrobe) and David is behind her. 

This murder was definitely the most suspenseful as it was expected but they made the audience wait right until the end, so you were nearly thinking that she may not get killed and then he attacks.