  The first fundamental aspect of this shift in the films style of horror film is the lighting and its progressive changes from the beginning to the end of the scene. At first when Dana is at deaths door, the audience is given a dark inky lighting with almost washed out colors. Marty’s return is greeted by moonlight streaming through the trees behind him, not only casting him in the light of a savor of Dana, but also an illuminator as he knows fundamental things that will lead the characters to greater understanding their reality. As they run through the dark woods the same lighting oscillates back and forth between the muted inky light and the streaming moonlight through the trees, as Dana and Marty are still occupying both realms of horror the film takes place in. This culminates in them exiting an unlit tunnel into the seemingly artificially lit maintenance room above the elevator. This is the transition between the world where they are victims of random happenstance to the world where they are targets in something larger. After entering the elevator itself the audience is greeted by even more illumination, in what seems to be florescent bulbs around the windows in the elevator.  It’s even more appropriate that the light is specifically illuminating the windows of the elevator as there lies the answers to what has been going on, other monsters, the things that prove that it is a set up. This appearance of an on screen light source is opposed to both the natural light of the woods, and the off screen light of the maintenance room, as it allows the viewer to subconsciously realize that the frame is getting brighter. As this brightness intensifies the audience is invited to let their guard down and ease back on the high tension moments before. This easing, a natural occurrence in a horror film to prevent the audience from being overstimulated, allows the new horrors to creep in that much more effectively. The viewer is in whats supposed to be a less tense moment in the film, that ends up being invaded by tense psychological horror, which perfectly mirrors the events that the college students of the film have encountered, a quiet relaxing moment being invaded by horror. In the natural light they lived in a world of the unknown, but Marty bore knowledge. In the off screen light they lived in a world of questions. In the onscreen light they lived in a world of answers. Answers that shift the horror.
