The Woman in Black Opening

The film 'The Woman in Black' begins with a closed frame of three children playing and having a tea party with their toys. This seemingly sweet and innocuous scene is given a sense of foreboding that sets the tone for the rest of the film.
The key light in the room comes from the daylight streaming through the window, which usually makes a scene feel pleasant and reassuring, however the lighting has been set up so that every shadow is more pronounced, darker, and larger lending it an eery feeling even though it is day.
It is also made unsettling by the lack of diegetic sound, such as the children laughing and talking as they play. Instead non-diegetic sound is used as a lullaby-like tune is played over the scene. This is one of the many inversions of innocent aspects of childhood that are made creepy as, instead of being a soothing song to fall asleep to, the lullaby is dis-jointed, in a minor key, and overly slow giving it an ominous edge.
The opening starts with close ups of the children's toys, such as mildly un-nerving dolls and then moves to a wide shot of them playing, followed by close ups on their smiling faces, this builds intimacy that makes the end of the sequence all the more shocking and traumatic. The camera stays close to the children until the turning point in the opening, when the tone goes from foreboding to explicitly frightening. A particular wide shot is used here, which gives the impression that the viewer is standing in the doorway into the room, forced to watch as the children suddenly quiet and start to walk, and move in perfect time and with an alarming sense of purpose and control rarely seen in children, towards the three window panes which they each open and step out.
A large part of the fear created here is in the way the children suddenly cease to act like children, this is revealed in the different shots that are interspersed with the single wide shot of their walk. These close ups show them stepping on and breaking toys, mindless to the destruction of these treasured possessions, focused only on reaching the window. There is also a final close up on the children, but unlike the ones earlier their faces are completely expressionless and devoid of any emotion.
Foreshadowing is also used here to add to the tension such as the shot of the camera zooming in on the window just before the children start to walk to it, signifying they will end up there. And the close up of the doll's head being crushed, symbolising the imminent death of the children.
The ending to the sequence is very impactful as the viewer is merely left an absence where the children were just moments before and a single haunting scream from off stage from the mother discovering the children dead.