I love when voices are heard before anything plays and I have to say, this was definitely a scary first few seconds. The one girl in the middle turning and pointing her finger at each child in turn while saying in a mechanical voice that someone will chop them up was weird. I’ve never seen anything like it, but kids in scary movies always make them much more so. The zooming out into the surrounding gloomy and shadowy area put forth ideas that there is something overlooking this. This scene gives us an idea of where the children are and the concern for the freaky song by the adults. The children, creepy as always are not afraid of this, but there must be some sort of story that goes along. A murderer is plaguing the people in this movie, wherever they are and that is set up for us by the small snippets of dialogue we hear.

The clocks are another one of those creepy tropes of scary movies, but Lang flawlessly moves from the clanging of clocks to a ringing bell and from a house to a large institution. We see the woman setting up for dinner, while a child heads home from school, clearly in no rush. The way the poster for the murderer was presented with the ball was cool. We read the poster and then see a shadowed man talking to the child. This suggests the child will not get home, as the mother had concerns for before. In less than five minutes, we already see so much of what the plot will entail. The whistled song and the balloon were just plain creepy, but we get the child’s movements juxtaposed with the mother at home wondering where her daughter is. Once again the clock goes off and a mother is concerned for her child, calling out to her after hearing someone outside. Her calls continue as the camera jumps to empty rooms and an empty dinner setting.

Lang did so much in this, with light and positioning. I also liked how he created this terror of the child murderer with the song starting before even the film plays. Then we see the notice, followed by a wonderful juxtaposition of the child out with the supposed murderer and the mother at home. When we stop seeing Elsie, we get only the mother shouting out for her child and pictures of empty rooms. Lang was so clever in his camera and sound work as these things show. The little dialogue used was chosen carefully and was used only to push the story further. Overall I thought it was really cool and shows exactly the sort of things we should be paying attention to and analyzing. When I have time, I’d like to finish the film.