The original post: /r/movies by /u/Ace_of_Sevens on 2024-04-29 16:07:49.
A lot of action & horror movies have plots that are going to take a while to set up the situation where all the genre stuff happens. However, many filmmakers are of the philosophy that audiences came for the genre stuff and feel the need to have some in the first few minutes to hook the audience. What are the most contrived attempts at this that you’ve seen?
For me, it has to be Saw X, when John Kramer sees a guy being rude, then has a whole fantasy sequence where he imagines sucking his eyes out with an elaborate pneumatic contraption. The trap that’s on all the posters exists only in an imagine spot because they thought, probably correctly, that Saw fans don’t want to wait almost an hour before they see someone tortured & maimed.
There are three main strategies I’ve seen for this:
- Establish the characters or setting with an early incident. This may be a victim who isn’t the main character getting picked off early in horror or an action hero doing something cool that’s only tangentially related to the plot. Screen & Speed are some of the best examples of this.
- Start in medias res: Start in the middle of an action or horror sequence, then jump back in time to show how the characters got there. Deadpool is a great example of this, but you can probably think of a lot of bad ones. Like a not of non-linear structures, it has potential for feeling like the screenwriter or editor jerking your chain.
- Dream sequence/story. You open with something cool, then reveal it’s a dream or maybe it’s a fictional story within the context of the movie. There are probably situations where this works, but I am having trouble thinking of any.