What Are The Characteristics And Language Of A Supernatural Film

There are different kinds of genres in films. An example of this is going to be something like horror or a thriller, a supernatural is another one. A supernatural film has to have build up of tension to grab the audience’s attention, also a bit of mystery to let the audience feel they are involved and are made to feel they are solving some sort of a case. The music in supernatural films mostly tends to have drums maybe string instruments and silence to create contrast and heighten the dramatic elements of the story.

The audience expect a supernatural film to be an unusual film, a wild mysterious film. A preview of a supernatural film should attract the audience’s eyes straight away. The audience of supernatural films expect the film to be in some cases even unnatural, for example about the afterlife and the living communicating with the dead. Another example of a supernatural film is “Final Destination” this is a supernatural film because it uses the idea of ‘if you cheat death it will come back after you’ but in reality it can’t be proven.

A director of supernatural films uses the camera to make the film more realistic, an example of this camera use will be a point of view shot; a point of view shot puts you in the position of the character for example in “The Sixth Sense” when the history teacher looks down at Cole in his history classroom. This makes Cole look small and vulnerable. A director uses dark lighting to put the audience in the mood that he/she wants them to be.

The Sixth Sense” is set in Philadelphia because it emphasizes the fact that this is where early American history took place and it is a perfect place to set the mood of the idea of life after death as its history provides the narrative with many ghosts. The director of ‘The Sixth Sense’ which is Shaymalan put his ideas in a way that got people thinking about their own ideas about life after death but his idea is that people don’t rest in peace when they die because there is something unfulfilled in their life.

Shaymalan thinks this because he has been interested in the supernatural since he was a little child this is because he was bought up listening to ghost stories. ‘The Sixth Sense’ was very popular and topped up the u. s box office chart it is so successful because it has a major twist in the final scene that got everyone surprised.

The title ‘The Sixth Sense’ gives the audience a rough idea what the film is going to be about, the word ‘sense’ in the title gives it all away, you know something unusual is going to happen due to the word ‘sense’, and the word ‘sixth’ gives you an idea that someone is going to have something to do with an extra sense which normal human beings dont have, naturally human beings have five senses which are touch, smell, hear, see and taste. The two leading actors are Bruce Willis which is doctor Crowe and Haley Joel Osment which is Cole Sears, in the film cole has a sixth sense which is that he can communicate with dead people.

The film ‘The Sixth Sense’ is basically about a doctor called Malcolm Crowe who is a child psychologist. , When one of his patients was young, Dr Crowe couldn’t help him out in with his disturbed life,as a result of desperation, the patient as an adult jumps to the conclusion of it was Dr Crowe who to blame so because of that he shoots Dr Crowe and then shot himself- they both die. When Dr Crowe interviewed Vince which was his patient, Dr Crowe had to leave the room for couple of minutes for some work and he missed what Vince was saying he said exactly what Cole tells Dr Crowe in the hospital that he can see dead people.

Dr Crowe realises that mistake he made after he dies and listens to the tape which he recorded and thats when he hears an extra voice in latin asking for help, because Dr Crowe realises what he done and he blames himself he tries his very best to help Cole who is another boy who is having problems in life and Dr Crowe tries to help him out, but at one point Dr Crowe backs of a bit on helping out Cole because he thinks at one point or another he is responsible for his old patient that died and he doesn’t want to let another patient of his feel the same, but then he comes across it and he ends up helping Cole.

One of the main problems cole is having is he is unable to communicate with his mother he keeps every little secrets to himself because he is scared that his mother might think he is a freak like everyone else thinks, he keeps them secrets until he meets Dr Crowe and slowly starts telling him everything. In the final scene of the film we are finally faced with a tremendous twist.

Dr Crowe is sitting on a chair talking to his wife while she is asleep with a red shawl wrapped around her (The colour red throughout the whole film indicates when something emotional is about to happen),when suddenly a ring falls out of her hand in this case, Dr Crowe picks up the ring and identifies the ring to be his wedding ring. The music starts as if building up tension, as Dr Crowe starts figuring out what is going on, at this point the director uses good techniques when Dr Crowe is surrounded by flashbacks such as him going to the restaurant for his wedding anniversary, when he takes a seat, he doesn’t even move his chair.

When the audience first saw this, they didn’t think of anything unusual, but when we see this in the flashback we seem to realize that the wife doesn’t realize he is sitting in front of her. There is no suspicious behaviour due to the fact that the chair doesn’t even move. There is sound effects such as Coles voices repeating what he had once told Dr Crowe ” I see dead people… they don’t even know they are dead…. their walking around only seeing what they want to see…. We then see the scene that was cut out in the beginning when Dr Crowe got shot.

We see his wife over him crying and him whispering his last words. We then see Dr Crowe back on the staircase where he finally figured out what was going on. He calms down we know this because when he is in tension the temperature drops and his breath comes out cold, now his breath comes normally and he walks back to his wife, he tells her every thing he wanted to tell her through her subconsciousness, braking their lack of communication.

The lighting throughout this scene is dull, but it looks a lot crazy. The last shot fades away leaving the audience feeling happy about the fact the lack of communication was broken and feeling as if Dr Crowe has finally moved on. overall to conclude I think that a supernatural film must have a major twist in it, the twist is what makes the film interesting, after all I think that ‘The Sixth Sense’ is a very good example of a supernatural film because it has a major twist in it and the camera work.

Lighting, costumes and music is very well used, because these things set a mood of something unusual and it makes it mysterious this was successful in ‘The Sixth Sense’ another reason I think ‘The Sixth Sense’ worked as a supernatural film is because in my opinion Shaymalans view of life after death really worked with the storyline and it really did play with the audiences minds and feelings.

I would want to see the film twice because now I know and caught all the clues and hints in mind, I will understand the film more and it will be really interesting to understand all the clues and hints that are in the film. I liked ‘The Sixth Sense’ because it has a wicked storyline and this film got me really thinking about the life after death and i think i never saw i better film with a twist like that.

Read also:

The Filmmaking of Quentin Tarantino
Considering how many films have been made about ghost, why has ‘The sixth sense’ proved so popular
Analyse the opening sequence and one other scene of the film ‘Gladiator’