Annabelle and Evil Dead Opening Sequence (Analysis and Comparisons)

How is the audience kept engaged? And left 'wanting more'?

In the opening title sequence of 'Annabelle', the audience would immediately be engaged because of text that appears saying ‘Since the beginning of civilisation, dolls have been beloved by children, cherished by collectors and used in religious rites as conduits for good and evil. This text also connotes danger, blood or evil, as it is written in red, and what is written itself seems very creep, as you wouldn’t usually associate dolls with evil, this would grab the audience’s attention straight away, and lead them to want to carry of watching, to see what happens with the ‘dolls.’ Furthermore, along with this, the non-diegetic asynchronous voice over's first line is ‘It scares us just thinking about it...’ which wants to get the audience thinking what scares her? Which again would keep them engaged. In addition to this, you then get a close up of a very old and creepy looking dolls face and a drum beat. The women in the shot then goes on to tell the story of how the doll keeps moving around the house, and they found out the doll may be possessed. This would most probably make the audience want to carry on watching and keep them engaged, as they want to know more about the doll, and what it has done, or what it is going to do. 

Similarly to this, in 'Evil Dead', it opens in a woodland. A girl is seen wandering in a woodland, very dirty and out of breathe, which leads the audience to want to know why she is so dirty, why is she out of breathe. She then ends up hiding behind tree, why is she hiding? You hear the shadow run off. But as she goes to look, the audience are now aware that the shadow is a man, and he is right behind her. He puts a bag over her head and says ‘I’ve caught the b****!’ Which leads the audience to know why these men wanted to catch her, what has she done? This makes them watch on to find out the whole story behind her and the other characters.

How is the Genre reinforced?
In 'Annabelle', the use of the low key lighting in the living room where the group and the doll are, creates a gloomy and tense atmosphere.
Along with this, horrors are usually set in big houses, which from the opening, you can just about tell that the house is relatively big, and old fashioned, which can lead to creaky floorboards and sounds you would usually hear in a horror. The non-diegetic sound of the deep chime/ drum when the camera focusses on the doll, makes an eerie atmosphere.
The dole that is used (a prop) is shown quite a lot in the opening 2 minutes, which suggests it is significant. The way it is dressed, the facial expression on it, and the cracks make it look scary, which again emphasises the genre of the film.

Likewise, in 'Evil Dead', the lighting is extremely low key, as it starts in the woodland/marshland. A girl is walking very slowly, by herself, and it’s most likely that something bad has/is going to happen to her.
The sound of her breathing has been made louder, to maybe emphasise the fact that she may have just run from something, you can also see this by how dirty she is.
Then out of nowhere a mysterious black shadow runs behind her, and she turns around to see what it was, and obviously, she doesn’t see anything. You then hear a howl in the background, which is a commonly used non diegetic asynchromous sound in a horror. The black shadow is then revealed to be standing very close to her, as the use of the over the shoulder shot, shows there is only a few tree’s between them, but you can only see its outline. She then hears the shadow run off, and she looks round the tree she is now hidden behind. Doing this the audience can then see that he is standing right behind her. So obviously the audience now know something bad is going to happen. Along with the non-diegetic sound of a drum beat, he suffocates her with a bag, while another man hits her in the head with a blunt object. All of this violence, the set and sound reinforces the fact that the movie is a horror.

Similarities and Differences?
In both of the opening title sequences, both are set in very stereotypical horror settings, a very large and old house, and a woodland. Both these places are normally in the middle of nowhere, with many places for people to hide, and are mostly always in low key lighting, which makes in harder for the protagonist to hide from the antagonist.
Also, both leaves the audience asking a lot of questions. As the start from the past and then jump to the future, you don’t really get the whole story, so you would need to watch the rest of the movie to find this information out.

However one main difference was that Annabelle used more spoken word to ‘scare’ the audience, whereas Evil Dead used non-diegetic sound and movement. I believe that Evil Dead created a scarier and tense atmosphere, by lessoning the spoken word, and intensifying what was going on, help build a better atmosphere for the audience, and would be more likely to get the audience to carry on watching. Having to listen to a conversation for the first two minutes, is not very engaging.