Scream begins one year after the death of Sidney Prescott's (Campbell) mother. Two students turn up gutted. When a serial killer appears, Sidney begins to suspect whether her mother's death and the two new deaths are related. No one is safe, as the killer begins to pick everyone off one by one. Everyone's a suspect in this case.
The mise-en-scene couldn't be more scary! A house in the middle of nowhere, at night. A young girl is on her own in this house, it's dark outside and the lights are on inside. This creates an atmosphere as it exaggerates the reflections in the windows and makes it more scary as it builds more of a suspense while you wait thinking something is going to jump out at you! The house is also very big with open spaces which gives you the sense that the girl has nowhere to hide. 
For the whole of the opening sequence the lighting in Scream is very dim which adds to the atmosphere and makes it a very scary watch! The lighting is so dim because the house is lit by lamps only and outside is pitch black. As i said earlier having the difference in the lighting inside and out creates the spooky reflections which build on the suspense. As the young vulnerable girl goes into smaller, more cramped spaces, the lighting becomes dimmer and there is less of it. This makes the viewer feel more on edge as there is less light which obviously makes the viewer feel uneasy but also there is a sense of being trapped as she walks through the smaller spaces. When the camera shows you the outside from the girls point of you the garden is lit up with blue lights showing a light covering of fog or mist. This makes the atmosphere very eery. 
The shot types during this opening sequence seem to vary quite a lot. This makes the audience feel uneasy because the shot types keep flicking which seem uneasy. There are lots of long shot which show the young girl on her own in the big house making her look more vulnerable. When she is on the phone and the voice on the other end seems to become more intense and keeps ringing even after she had said to stop the close-up shots begin. They are quite consistent and they show the audience the worry and fright on the young girls face which makes you as a viewer feel more frightened for her as you can how scared she is. The camera follows her down the small, dark corridor which makes the audience feel uneasy because it makes them feel like they are following the action like the bad guy! There are a number of zooms as well. The shot type will start off as a long shot and then quickly zooming in on the girl to a close-up shot. This happens quickly and not very steadily which also makes the audience feel very uneasy as it was so unsteady. All of the editing within the opening sequence of Scream are straight, sharp cuts. This makes the editing clean and the opening sequence move more steadily and quickly which builds on the suspense.
Most of the sound used is diegetic sound. We can hear everything that the people within the film can hear which makes us feel more of a part of it, which makes it more scary for us as we feel like we are there. We can hear the phone ringing and we can hear the voice on the other side of the phone line. The non-diegetic sound we hear that the characters can't is the eery, ominous tones, or music, playing behind the dialogue! This music creates tension and builds a suspense.
The character we meet straight away is a young, blonde, vulnerable girl. This immediately makes us feel on edge because it is clear that something is going to happen to her as she is seen as an 'easy target'. The telephone constantly ringing builds a tension for both us and the character within the film.
This is the opening sequence of Scream (1997)
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