Thriller Research - Panic Room

Movie: Panic Room



I enjoyed watching this as it was so intense and gripping!

There are two events happening during this scene. Which merges into one.

The first one is the man fighting the woman and child. The second one is another man struggling to reach a gun.

From the beginning you see an injured man dragging himself along the floor with a sledgehammer. He then leaps onto a woman who is also down on the floor and they start wrestling. The woman trying desperately to escape him.

Then it cuts to another man on the floor who seems injured trying to crawl and reach a handgun. It then cuts back to the first seen where the child now uses her injection needles to stab the man in the back. The man punches the child away who starts to scream. It then cuts to the other event where you see the mans hand close to grabbing the gun but then an unknown hand wearing a glove appears from nowhere and picks the gun up.

It then cuts back to the first scene again where the man beating up the woman picks up the sledgehammer and is about to kill her with it. You see a (POV) Point Of View through the eyes of the man with the sledgehammer, that looks at the woman about to die, who lays there motionless.

It then switches to an (OTS) Over-The-Shoulder shot behind the woman on the floor where you can see the man about to hit her with the sledgehammer. Then all of a sudden a man from nowhere appears with the glove and pistol and shoots the man.

The reason why I think it is so intense is because of the music and sound. Throughout the whole scene there is a medium pitched orchestra which is the non-diagetic sound that adds a significant dramatic effect without being obtrusive. In other words, it's hard to notice it's there, but without it, the scene wouldn't be as effective.

The diagetic sound is the screaming from the child. It is loud and you can see the child scream so the viewer is obviously aware of it. It is played across both the events that occur in the scene. And again, intensifies the drama.

At the end when the man shoots the other man, you hear the sound of the gun. And when that happens all other sound is lost. This kills the build up of tension and climax.