Iveta Razanauskaite

Cry Wolf Trailer

Textual analysis of Cry wolf

The tittle of the movie I will be analysing is Cry wolf. It is an American movie written by Beau Bauman and Jeff Wadlow, directed by Jeff Wadlow. The movie was released on the 13^th of January 2006. Cry wolf is a mix of genres film, which includes drama, horror, mystery and thriller.

Narrative structure

The film follows Todorov’s equilibrium model which contains the calm start of the movie (equilibrium), the normality is disturbed by some kind of conflict (disruption) and at the end of the movie everything appears to be resolved (new equilibrium). Cry wolf starts with a scene of a flashback that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached.  This is used to inform the audience what has happened before the story’s key sequence.

The key sequence tracks the narrative structure to get its point across.  The whole story begins with a new English boy (Owen Mathews) joining a posh boarding school and meets a girl (Dodger) on the school door step. While they talk they get interrupted by other kids coming out from the school, and Dodger disappears suddenly audiences are aware that superior conflicts are going to occur.  The equilibrium carries on when the students start to play the lying game and again a scene of the dead girl’s found body is inputted. The students try to further scare their school by spreading rumours about the murderer of the girl in the flashback is up for the game too. The students style an imaginary murderer ‘The wolf’, by describing him they try to see how many people are they going to convince to believe the lie as well as if anyone will reveal it. Owen is the main character who comes up with the idea of spreading a letter by email to the whole school.  Which suggest that Owen is the main liar of the film. When they describe the victims, they truly end up dead, suddenly no one knows where the lies end and the truth begins.

The disruption happens when Owen gets a message from ‘the wolf’ which is “be careful what you wish for”, this tells us that ‘the wolf’ murderer is real, although it was only imaginary character. The student end up hunting eachother. After everything that has happened Owen is  terrified on every step he takes, audiences already know that he is the liar who pays the price in return., however he decides to quit the game, but the hunting is still on., when he experiences terror, he chooses to finish the game on a Halloween night.  When his friends are being killed he tries to get for help but no one longer believes him, because he was the one to spread the rumours. The diruption ends when the scene comes when Owen is supposed to be killed, however he kills the teacher who he thought was ‘the wolf’.

At the very end of the movie the diruption is resolved. Everyone thinks that the teacher was the murderer of the girl at the beginning of the movie because he had an affair with her. The  new equilibrium is here, but the irony is that Dodger tells something to Owen which confirms that the main liar of the movie was herslef. She was in love with the teacher and she hated the idea of him being with another girl, so she got the power in her hands and killed her, she used her friends for tto help her play her game, as well as she manipulated Owen to kill the teacher.  She setted the whole game the first thing they met at the beginning of the movie. When Owen understands what has happened he decides to tell everyone, but no one longer will believe him, because he ‘cried wolf’ too many times.

This film doesn’t really have the predictable new equilibrium, because no one longer believes Owen, which makes the ending of the movie seem very different from other movies, it is certainly unexpected outcome.  This ending makes the movie seem very unique as well as through the model of equilibrium there’s a message that the writers wanted to get across to the audiences.

As the girl is killed in the wood sthey haved used graphic match to leave one scene and appear in the other when Owen is arriving to the school through the woods.

Genre codes and conventins

Most horror films follow a set of conventions consistent throughout the genre, which Cry wolf movie director uses as well. These are indicated through typical characters, typical stylistic and the elements of mise-en-scene, (locations, props, costume, lighting, facial expressions, body language, cinematography, sound and editing).

The flashback at the right beginning of the movie emphasises the horror/thriller genre as there were violence and also it already added tension and mystery to the movie. The protagonist is in danger, which thrills us because it is fast-paced and the music on top of the scene helps to build up tension and excitement, it all helps to engage the audiences and plays with their minds. The key scene starts with scene of the two students meeting and already being interrupted, specifies the drama genre of the film. This helps the audience sympathise with the characters from the right beginning of the movie.  Also when the girl disappears it just makes audience question where has she mysteriously disappeared. Most of the scenes are filmed in low key high contrast which also adds to the representation of the genre, even though the whole movie had a dull atmosphere, the low key high contrast help very much to the scenes of the action to make the film look even more frightening. 

Throughout the whole movie there are a lot of scenes that represents the horror genre of the film. To highlight the horridness, the director the director frequently uses violent scenes, which present the characters being killed by an antagonist; there is a mass of blood and tragic ways of killing the students which also enhances the horror genre.  

The drama is signified by the conflicts between the students, as there are lots of disagreements, which is typical for teenagers who always have some sorts of moral dilemmas. The film end very dramatically, because the Dodger at the end makes herself appear innocent, even though she’s the main reason everything has happened, she makes audiences question and touch on the deeper emotions of normal people.

In this case the thriller genre overlaps with mystery; however they are separated by the structure of their plots.  The thriller side of the film delivers a rush of emotions and enjoyment, which distributes the story in tension, excitement and even surprise.  Thriller brings the mystery into the movie in the way the murderer was chasing the students, even though we don’t see the murderer’s face throughout in the movie, it makes it strange to the audiences and makes them question.  

The representation of the gender in this movie is very stereotypical. It is very stereotypical for a male character to be the hero of any movie. The hero of this film is Owen. There is another character but she is a girl (Regina) and she is getting intimidated by a male character Randall, which makes the women seem very vulnerable in appearance compared with men. However, Dodger is a female character, while breaking the stereotype of women always being vulnerable Dodger is in charge of everything. The movie shows that women can be very devious and attractive at the same time.

Throughout the whole film teenagers are mainly wearing school uniforms to highlight they are students of a posh school as well as student’s main clothes are uniforms while they are on campus ground, as in America the most school are without uniforms. 

The scene of Dodger telling her plans of making a serial killer character there is a lot of bod language to express how every student feels about it. Dodger is sitting back with the apple in her hand, which shows she is trying to get everyone’s attention by being nearly attractive, she also looks delighted of herself that everyone is up for her game. Other students are leaning on the table with their elbows which shows they are interested in what is being said. Their facial expressions show that they are in a tense moment, as every character has their eyes steady on Dodger, listening to what she is saying. However one of the characters has a vulnerable facial expression to show that she is scared of the whole plan as well as in horror movies there is always one character that is holding back.

This film is following the structure of horror movie characters. It has a character that holds back, the attractive girl, as usual a male non-believer character which always gets killed first as well as a protagonist which is the main figure of the film.

Torches were used to create low key high contrast lighting for the scenes when the students were playing the game, they always point the torch down to a person to show their facial expression, torches were the one of the props in the movie, because when the torch is pointed downwards it symbolises death, as in their game it means they are taken down and the game is finished for them.  This style of lighting is typical of the genre; it helps to create eerie and threatening atmosphere. 

Non diegetic music is used to originate in all the scary scenes, to build up tension and make audience feel it as well.  Also there are a lot of scenes that have diegetic sound effects to make each scene more mysterious and make the atmosphere seem very creepy as it is a horror movie.

The analysis of 2-3 minute extract

After the creation of the wolf, Owen sits in his room trying to call his dad as usual he doesn’t pick up and he seems annoyed, as soon as the he gets off the phone he receives regular IM massages from ‘The wolf’. As he gets the first message ‘watch what you wish for, there are flashbacks of Dodger being killed as they have described it, just few hours ago.  This shows that Owen thought it was Dodger because he gives a one half smile, which makes us think he is attracted by her, however the smile isn’t that confident which also tells us that he is a little vulnerable. He shortly receives another message saying ‘you should be’ suddenly it makes him blank; it tells us that he is scared as he is the one to blame. When he sends a message back asking if it is his roommate Tom, the whole frightening atmosphere is distracted by Tom storming into the room.  Owen says ‘I’ve got your message’ which Tom denies that it was him. While Owen talked, his voice still sounded very frail, because Tom is in the room, which makes audiences question as well as Owen who it really is. Tom suggests that it is Dodger’s idea trying to scare him, although he doesn’t believe it could be her.  Tom takes charge and texts back with a sarcastic expression which is typical for school teen-agers to do; this also stereotypes teenagers once again. While he’s texting there is a pan shot of the letters spreading onto the page which clearly informs us there is some kind of evidence hidden behind it.  When Tom is sure it is Dodger, the guys are smiling already and thinking how to trick her as well; they get another message in a moment and their expressions look like they have been terror-stricken. Tom acts as if he has swallowed his words, which suggest that he is even more terrified than Owen.  He turns to Owen pointing at the computer saying ‘Relax, man. Whoever it is knows your screen name. It's got to be someone on campus. But he said it as he did not believe himself, we can see by his facial expression.  As Tom says ‘it is got to be someone from campus’, the scene is dissolved to Dodger swimming in the pool. All this suggestion of Dodger playing a trick on them gives audiences a clue of that she might be in control of it.

Throughout the whole extract there is a low key high contrast lighting to create the atmosphere of foreboding and mystery. The artificial lighting of the computer and a table lamp is used all way through as well as the main light from outside through the window.

There is a depth of field manipulation when Owen is on the phone and his face is in focus, although it changes when he receives the message, the focus then is set on the computer which makes audience suddenly consider that something important is going to come up. There is also dramatic sound track playing which contributes to drama; the track is played louder and louder to build tension until Tom comes into a room, then the music stops. Also the same music track plays when the boys get the last message which made their faces drop.

Shot-reverse-shot is used mainly to observe what is happening on the computer as well as how the characters react to it, to do that they have used 90 degree rule. Zip pan is used when Tom strikes into the room, which ends on a medium close-up, shot on his face.  

The stereotype of teenagers is set as well, in the whole scene by student using their computers in their spare time when they are bored, talking to strangers.

Review Analysis

Critic Keith Phipps from an American A.V Club started the review with a question, which communicates with us straight away, however he answers the question himself, which the answer would be the same from the audiences too. He also highlights that this movie uses new scare technologies to entertain the viewer. Critic also tells us what he thought about the movie: he thinks it is awful.

The layout of the review is exactly the same as other reviews are, however some are double page spread or even four page spread. It was a clean and sleek layout, which is very easy to follow and read. There is a quite large image on the top of the page, which is an image from the film itself. They have used an image of a sequence where the girl is getting stabbed by ‘The Wolf’, which images like that always catch the reader’s attention. The title of the film is set at the bottom of the picture.

The colours, which are used, are quite professional and easy on the eye. The colours from the image are matching with the column aside of the review, which also makes it simple and eye catching. You would think that the review would be quite boring with just a black font and a plain white background. However the colour from the large image, which is from the film, engages the one to read the review of this film.  

The rating system, which is on every review page, shows how good the film is. It gives a clear summary of the film to those who doesn’t want to read the review; they can look at the rating system and see what the critics thought of the film itself. There is a column ‘I saw this’ for the audiences who have seen the movie and want to grade it and give their own opinion of the film.

The language is quite colloquial; according to the storyline it is more suitable for teenagers to watch it.

Keith Phipps describes the movie’s content as well as he mentions the leading character’s names. He uses characters’ real names to make them more recognisable by their name in other cases such as other movies etc. “… co-eds all look well above the drinking age…” by this fact the critic wants us to identify that the characters don’t look like school kids no more, he also specifies that they look left over from a Playboy shoot in the school uniforms they are wearing at their age. He also criticizes the film further, which is not very convincing to watching it.  Phipps assures that for more thoughtful audiences this movie would be a complete waste of time, because they would straighten out all the ‘twist’ and ‘turns’ straightaway.

Keith Phipps ends the review with a play on words, which states that there is nothing special about this film; it is just an ordinary film. He uses it as a method of reinforcing his point of view.