Last lesson I studied the spanish film "The Orphanage". this film is about a family that move into an old orphanage which is where the wife and mother of the family lived as a child. It involves mainly the mother and small boy as he is playing with imaginary friends which turns out to be ghosts which are haunting the house.
From looking at the first few scenes I can clearly tell that this film is a physcological horror. This is due to many reasons but here are a few; the lighting in all of the scenes allows us to very clearly see some characters but manges to hide the more mysterious characters faces. This gives the audience the feeling that they are bad and you suspect them immediately from the beginning of the film.
The scene I watched showed the orphanage in older times when the wife/mother was still at the orpahnage or so we presume. This scene is ended with and old woman who clearly runs/owns the orpanage( due to how she is looking down on the children as they are playing) ending a phones call and saying "your friends will miss you". This gives the audience a feeling that the little girl( on which this is being said uppon) has maybe done something which she is being sent away for or maybe she is being sent away to protect her from the other children or somethin else that is in the house.
An another scene I watched is where the family have brought in a paraphyscologist and a medium to see if the house is haunted.
The sound effects and dialogue in this scene are very important as they have to build tension not onyl through the diagetic (sounds the characters could actually hear) but also through the non diagetic( sounds the characters cant hear). the director does this by using mainly stringed instruments at a low slow note and then as the tension builds the speed and note creschendo to an almost overwhelming sound. however the diagetic sounds still maintain to be loud and very over exagerated. for example ther is a scen where the assistant of the paraphyscologists is drawing on a map of the house and as the tension builds you can even hear the pencil scrape across the paper. by doing this the scene creates more tension than what could be done with just using a camera alone or just using diagetic sounds on there own or non diagetic sounds on their own.