AN ANCIENT TERROR

Past the nature of its titular game, the story of “Jumanji” carries its eeriness over to its cinematic atmosphere. Twenty-six years after the disappearance of teenager Alan Parrish, orphaned siblings Peter and Judy Shepherd move with their aunt Nora into the vacant mansion of the Parrish family, and it is within minutes of that new experience that director Joe Johnston and editor Robert Dalva establish a haunted mansion, an idea irradiated by two shots cut together:

Over a long, high-angle frame, we see Peter opening the door that leads to the attic. The shot takes its time (17 seconds), as the boy comes in and explores the room with a flashlight. The creaks in the wood from the door and flooring reverberates in the windy ambiance, while the xylophone on the score, by James Horner, suggests an air of mystery and curiosity. The point of view, behind objects placed way back in the room’s furniture, is fully identified with Peter, tracking his every step at his same speed. It also stops as he stops and we are able to see the silhouette of a bat, opening its wings and making a screech. All of a sudden, we cut to a briefer, close shot of a grayish blanket being pulled down to reveal a close-up of an elder woman in a painting. 

The scene could have began with the following, wider shot of Judy looking at the antiquity she just uncovered, but instead, the lady’s stare, right into the camera lens, and surrounded by the age-old appearance of the work and subject, sharply strikes against the spectators following these kids’ journey. This is reinforced by brusque sound of the blanket and, shortly after and still on this frame, an acute, scared scream coming from an off-screen source. We can quickly associate this to Peter, with the bat in the attic. Yet, for a moment, an image is conjured by the intimidating look of the painting’s subject and the cry, almost as if the former were provoking the latter. The house, host of the game, has spoken.