American Horror Story: Coven Deconstruction

For this post I will be deconstructing mise-en-scene of a character's room. The character, Spalding, is obsessed with dolls and so has an extensive collection of them, often holding tea parties with them. The purpose of this is to explore how a character's obsession can be shown effectively through mise-en-scene.

Spalding keeps his tea set organised which shows the obsessive traits in his character. This scene was shot with low key lighting, with only the light from a torch showing certain parts of Spalding's room at a time which creates suspense as the audience's view of the room is limited and so they do not know what they see next. 

Spalding's dolls are also obsessively arranged on several shelves that are situated behind the table where he holds his tea parties, so the dolls appear to overlook the parties. The use of dolls in this context is scary as dolls have connotations of childish innocence which directly juxtaposes with the sinister atmosphere created in this scene, conforming to conventions of the horror genre.

This deconstruction is useful as it shows how a character's obsessive traits would influence the mise-en-scene of a particular set. When filming our opening, my group can incorporate some elements of obsessive mise-en-scene to successfully meet the conventions of the psychological horror genre.