CW: Sound EG 5: Bride of Chucky

This is the poster for the movie.

Bride of Chucky [Childs Play IV]

Ronny Yu, 1998 (Slasher, 18)
Produced by: Universal Pictures.
Distributed by: Metronome Distribution
Budget: $25m
Box Office: $50.7m worldwide. £526k UK
Trailer, Wikipedia
RottenTomatoes: Scored 42%

Synopsis:
The fourth film in the Chucky franchise, it follows on 8 years after the previous Childs Play film. Focusing on Chucky's quest to escape the doll's body he is trapped within. 

Idents:
Bride of Chucky (Yu, 2008) starts with non-diegetic music over the idents. This music creates an audio bridge between both idents and the opening shot.

Music:
The music is strings which play slow, drawn out notes, they are combined in the background with a drum, playing slow beats. This beat then builds to a faster beat after briefly stopping. This creates the tension and connotes footsteps or a heart beat (it ispolysemic until we have further signifiers and therefore anchorage). The music here has been specificly designed to create tension.

Changes in the Music:
There is an increase in the pitch and a change to sharp and flat notes all this combined with the fast drum drastically increases the tension. When we do a commutation test we find that this music has been very specifically designed for creating tension and making the audience feel nervous.

Diegetics:
The non-diegetic and diegetic sound are combined and the non-diegetic sound is more exaggerated than it would be in real life (an example of this is the phone, which rings as if it were on speaker phone) the young and naive voice on the other side of the phone creates an impression on the audience.

Volume Changes:
The music quietens for the sound of drips. This makes us focus on what is happening on screen and then when the radio activates we are shocked by the loud noise of it starting happening in the quiet.
The music the returns, making the audience feel safe. It then stops just before the person dies then returns at a faster pace as the dialogue is spoken.

Why has the music been designed like this?:
The music has been specifically designed in order to create tension, it's made to make the audience feel scared and afraid before any action has happened. The music prepares the audience for what will happen throughout the film. The long and slow notes combined with the percussion has an interesting effect on the audience, the long notes make yon hold your breath but the percussion makes your heart beat faster. Within the opening within the opening has been designed to fade and stop before any action happens, the audience will get used to this and so it can be used later on by the film makers to create the right atmosphere for each kill.