Textual analysis: 'Stalked'

The short film starts off with the thumbnail of the video. The title is placed on the top right corner of the screen. The font is in a straightforward and easy to read font and is also white, which connotes that a person who is 'good' and 'pure' is the one being stalked. This is because the colour white connotes goodness and pureness. The picture of a couple is slightly off the middle, breaking the rule of thirds, so perhaps these two people are the main victims of the film. Since, the photo is in the rubbish bin, in the dark, next to a toilet roll an cotton bud, it could connote that the villain is trying to get rid of them like they are  piece of trash.

The first sound we hear is a non diegetic sound of a telephone ringing and then it goes to voicemail. This connotes that maybe someone has been attacked and so couldn't answer the phone, and that there was no one there to help the victim. The camera does a 90 degree shot of the house, which shows a girl washing her face in the bathroom. There is the non diegetic sound of the voice message continuing of this shot. It is of a girl leaving a voice message to someone, which connotes that the girl is either the girl who is in the currently scene, or maybe one of her friends / relatives.
The fact that the film started off with a voicemail can link to Barthes symbolic code as the phone in this film may be significant in making the narrative fit to the horror genre.

The person on the voicemail says "Jake cannot come anywhere near you, he has a restraining order" which connotes that she was in trouble before and harmed. This also created enigma as the audience will wonder who Jake is and why he has a restraining order, and how he harmed her. Because of this, they will carry on watching the film. This also starts to build up the narrative and allow the audience have a hint of what may happen in the film. For example, Jake may be released and ends up stalking her in real life or gets someone else to finish the job.

The next shot is of a mid close up of the girl of an Asian ethnicity. She is putting on make up, implying that she us ready to go out / to go to a party. As soon as the voice message ends with "I'll see you soon, bye" there is the non diegetic sound of a door slamming. It sounds as if someone has entered the house. She stops doing her eye makeup and jumps and breathes heavily as she is frightened.  Her hand is still in a position where she was going to apply her makeup, which connotes that she knows someone is there but is scared to move. She then shakes it off, thinking that it was all in her head. From this, the audience can tell that maybe she thought the sound of the door slamming was in her head but in fact it was in reality. This created an omniscient narrative as the audience know some parts of the narrative that the main character does not.


There is a jump cut to the next scene which is a wide shot of her choosing what to wear from her wardrobe, which is outside of her room. This is a stereotype of women as they have lots of clothes but still don't know what to wear. The fact that she is choosing her clothes could foreshadow that it is the clothes she might be attacked in.

She finally chooses what to wear, and she chooses to wear all black with red lipstick. Black connotes darkness and death,  and red connotes blood, which could foreshadow that she might be killed on this night. She sighs and still feels insecure about what she is wearing. There's a close up of when she takes her jacket off the table and  there is  letter there that says 'restraining order', and is circled. It looks like she is due for a court hearing soon. Perhaps this could connote that it might be her last day of freedom and so she is going to go out and party. However someone might be planning to attack her because of this.

There is a pull focus as she locks her house and starts to leave the building but doesn't notice that there is someone there in  grey hoodie staring at her in the back of the corridor. It focuses from the girl to the person in the hoodie really fast. This shows the audience that the person in the grey hoodie is the one who is stalking her. There are ambient sounds of the dog barking and her heels /footsteps as she walks outside and looks around to see if anyone is there. This creates verisimilitude as hearing a dog bark outside is normal, but since it is barking, it could connote that there is danger.

Throughout the film, there is a whirring/buzzing sound that only stops once she gets out of her flat. This could connote that the whirring is something that was persuading her to come out, and now tat she s outside, the real danger is about to happen. Usually in psychological horror movies there is a convention of having a whirring / buzzing sound to connote that someone is not in the right mind set, and this film has followed this convention. After the scene where she gets out of the house, daunting non diegetic music enters the scene. This carries on until she hears a phone ringing somewhere nearby.

She arrives at her destination but no-one is there, connoting that it is a trap. The phone rings somewhere but we cannot see it, nor can the character. She looks around and sees a telephone but there is also a sheet that says it is out of order. Binary opposites that occur. She then walks towards the telephone and the camera is placed at a low angled shot to look like it is what she is staring at. She comes from one side of the camera and then in to the middle, the centre. This connotes that since she is in the middle now, she has fallen right into the stalker's trap and he will do something bad to her.
There is a low angled close up shot of her face to show her emotions. She is looking down at the phone like this may be the last time she takes a call. She looks around to see if anyone is there before she picks up the phone. She picks it up and listens carefully but there are only metallic and eerie sounds that we can hear that sound like chimes. These sounds fit in with the horror genre as they are used in other movies and also make the movie scary. When she starts to gasp and run away, we as the audience know that we didn't hear at was being said at the other end of the line, which creates an enigma code. She was probably being threatened and scared away.

The phone is left dangling in the middle as she was too much in shock to put it back. This non diegetic metallic sound continues. There is tracking shot of the girl running back in the streets, running as fast as she can and half looking back to make sure there is no one thereto get her. She runs all the way down until a little corner where she coughs and catches her breath. She takes her phone out and makes a call whilst she carries on walking into the darkness whilst looking back. Suddenly someone grabs her and she screams.

The credits then appear on screen, leaving an enigma code and the audience wondering at happened to her.