What is the purpose of a thriller opening?

The purpose of the opening sequence of a thriller should engage the audience, establish the plot, establish characters, set the tone and atmosphere and establish the genre. It should also raise questions which in turn hook the audience.

The thriller opening I have chosen to analyse is Inception. The clip I have analysed is above.

The opening of inception starts with setting the scene, it doesn't show much of the scene just that it's coastal. There aren't really many wide shots or an establishing shot in the very beginning just mid shots. This is to show the audience the setting and gives them an overview of the scene.

The use of guns links to the action thriller genre and foreshadows action and the talk of murder intrigue the audience. It also sets quite a dark tone and hints to the the audience that because of the use of guns there is quite likely to be murder later on. Guns also set a darker tone because they link to murder and death which casts a darker tone onto this thriller.



The protagonist and antagonist are both also introduced in the opening scene. We're introduced the antagonist by seeing a long shot of the back of his head and are not introduced to him to quite a way into the opening scene and even then we only see him from mid to long shots away. This makes him seem more of an intriguing character to the audience because they don't see him close up and it leaves them wondering what he likes and why they haven't been introduced to him yet. It hooks them in which is a succesful technique used in their thriller opening.

The canted angles used when the protagonist is lying on the beach are used to create confusion and distrust, this links to the use of crashing waves which symbolise tension and unease. It also links to the use of a flashback, we as the audience can tell it's a flashback from the intense colour used in the scene which contrasts with the dark colours used in the rest of the scene.

The main thing a thriller opening should do is make the watcher ask questions and hook the in so they watch the rest of the film to find out the answers to their questions. Some of the questions I personally asked were
Why is he on the beach?
What on earth are they talking about?
Why are there children on a beach guarded by guards with guns?
Who are the children?
Why are there guns?
How do they know each other?
"I know what this is?" WHAT IS IT?!?!
Posing questions to the watcher engages them and encourages them to watch on.

The low key lighting is typical of a thriller because it sets a dark atmosphere and a chiaroscuro light effect which works really well in thrillers adding an aspect of mystery and tension to a scene. The deep bass note playing in the back of the scene also adds to the tension and is effective because unless you're concentrating on it it's not obvious and it creates suspense and adds to the tension.

In conclusion I believe that Inception uses all the things a typical thriller opening should do to create tension, grab the audience and establish plot while posing many questions at the same time to hook the audience in and watch more to find out the answers to their questions.