Research - How a movie from the Thriller genre creates a distinguished opening sequence

The movie I am analysing the opening scene of is the 1993 film Cliffhanger. The film opens with a scene of two climbers perched on the side of a mountain, it is connoted that they are in need of rescue from the fact that one of them has a flare in his hand. This scene immidiately establishes a connection between it and the title of the film. A variety of extrme long shots, 360 degree shots, and bird's eye shots are used to highlight the scale and height of the surrounding mountains, connoting a vulnerability of the climbers stranded there.

The main protagonist is also immidiately established as Gabe (played by Sylvester Stallone) through his involvement in climbing the mountain to rescue them, upbeat non-diegetic soundtrack is also used as he's climbing to show he is confident in climbing and is there to 'save the day'. When he reaches the perch where the fellow climbers are, low angle shots are used on Gabe to show he is the one in control, whilst high angle shots are used on the other two to show they are not. Gabe's confident, jokey nature also makes him a likeable character to the viewer.

When they are waiting for the helicopter to set up a rescue line, there is a relaxed, light-hearted nature among the trio which makes the sudden change to a life threatening situation even more tense for the viewer. As the helicopter sets up the rescue line, forboding non-diegetic soundtrack briefly plays, hinting at something possibly going wrong. As the female character crosses the line, high angle shots are used to show that she is not in control and unconfident. Extreme close ups of her harness breaking and reaction shots are used to highlight her sudden terror at the situation unfolding. The non-diegetic soundtrack immidaiately changes to high-tempo, suspenseful music to fit in with the characters terror. As Gabe is attempting to pull her up, reaction shots of extreme close ups of both their faces clearly detail the emotions they are experiencing and the desperation of the situation.

The sudden death of what appears to be a significant character immidiately establishes the genre as a Thriller and also intrigues the audience as it hints to more twists and possible deaths in the plot to come. The themes of the plot are also made fairly obvious to the viewer, such as fear, guilt, suspense, and trauma.