The Devil's Backbone- Opening sequence analysis

The Devi's Backbone     

Released 2002

Directed by: Guillermo Del Torro 

The film is set in a remote Spanish orphanage during the Spanish civil war, it's about a spirit called 'Santi' that brutally terrorises the children. As the film builds up the children start to learn about how 'Santi' died and how they get vengeance on his murder. 

• The DVD cover immediately suggests horror from the dark image that gives off an eerie atmostphere. The picture denotes a man holding a gun with a white blurred image overlapping him, this could connote that a spirit is involved in the film and normally this means something bad is going to happen. The font used is written in red and this could connote blood, it also looks like a persons handwriting, so it could be suggesting that it is wrote by someone with blood, this connotes violence and death. The title has the word 'devil' in it, this connotes to the audience that the devil is involved, and the devil is always associated with violence and torture. 
• During the first 10 seconds of the film, a creep is used to slowly zoom in on a hallway that is dark. A voiceover then asks 'what is a ghost?'. The creep causes tension within the audience as you expect something to happen, also the use of a rhetorical question allows the audience to feel involved in the film, and to actually think about what ghosts are. 
• The scene then goes on to show a bird's eye view of a dark city with a bomb being dropped on it. The bomb that is dropped feels like it is coming from where you are sitting and this connotes you are very close to the enemy and causes tension. The fact that the city is then covered by black shutters connotes that the film is not entirely based on the war, but it is happening whilst the film is being filmed. 
• The next scene we see is a creep to a young boy laying on the floor with an injury to his head, he is blinking so is not dead, a brick is next to him, this connotes that he could have been hit with a brick by someone or something, or he could have been a victim of the war. The use of a young boy immediately causes sympathy throughout the audience as children are seen as vulnerable, and many people watching could relate to how they would feel if their child every has to die alone in the darkness. 
• As the other character picks up the injured boys head, we are still on a close up of the boy, so all we see are hands, this makes the audience question who the other character is and whether he was the one who killed him, this makes the audience feel intrigued. The camera then moves up to a close up of the other character, and we see its another child with the boys blood on his hand crying. This connotes vulnerability, and suggests to the audience the film is going to be targeted on children and may be gruesome. 
• The scene slowly fades under dirty water, and a faint image of the boy tied in rope is shown, and he is sinking. The camera then tilts up to the other young character that perhaps pushed the boy in the water. For a split second a low shot is used to connote that the boy feels power, but then it moves into a middle shot to show him crying, and the audience realises that the boy feels no power at all, he just feels vulnerable and scared, and didn't push the boy into the water for hate reasons. 
• Throughout the whole of the opening sequence a classical instrumental is used in the background. This is stereotypical in many horrors as it builds up the tension, causes an eerie atmosphere and makes the audience feel uneasy.