When I was in the process of in the process of deciding which type of horror film we wanted to create, there was a strong feeling amongst all three of the group members that we wanted to create a trailer which was different to the current theme of horror- gore and blood. We decided instead that we wanted to make a psychological horror trailer which played with the readers mind, and influenced them in a much more indirect way, rather than the immediate horror effect which a slasher or gore horror film would.
The story begins with two friends in a car, driving through country roads, seemingly happy and they're just looking for something to do. There is a clear bond between the pair, shown by the way they are laughing and chatting in an informal way. The pair eventually end their journey when they pull up on the side of the road and see a mysterious figure running through the woods. Intrigued, the pair decide to investigate and follow the character, to be led into an abandoned church. Although the place is very quiet and somewhat peaceful, there is a definite sense of fear amongst the characters (Kieran Browne and Louis Caseley). As the light begins to fade over the abandoned ruins, the intensity increases and the atmosphere becomes very tense. While the boys are looking around the ruins, they become separated, unable to find each other, until Louis sees the figure standing in a gap in the ruin walls, as he escapes and runs from the scene, his friend Kieran screams his name while trying to search, but to no avail. Kieran is then "caught" by the un-identified figure, due to the burlap sack which covers his head, leading Louis to think his friend has been killed.
As the film continues, Louis starts to see Kieran's name everywhere he goes, thoughts of his death, and weather it was his fault plague him, eventually taking over his entire life. Negatively effecting his social life to the point which he could actually be considered mentally insane. The twist in the movie comes when Louis decides to visit the place where Kieran was supposedly killed by the demon, only to find out that he wasn't actually killed, but in an attempt to kill who he thinks is the killer. he actually kills Kieran, as Kieran wasn't actually dead in the first place, in-turn becoming the killer himself. This part of the film is not shown in the trailer, to allow for the audience to be surprised when they actually go and see the film in the cinema.
The film mainly follows Todorov's theory about structure. With a clear equilibrium at the beginning, with the two friends in the car, followed by the problem, the recognition, the fixing the problem stages, however the twist in our film means there is simply no second equilibrium. Due to Louis being killed at the end of the film, the film ends in sadness, which is reasonably uncommon in film, but more common in horror film. This is done to play on the audiences mind, for example if the film ended and everything was okay, the element of fear would disappear from the film. However as there is no calm, or death of the evil character, the audience would leave the cinema thinking "what if that happened to me?" Which is exactly what horror producers want because it keeps viewers talking about their films and it keeps them coming back for more.
The key characters in the trailer are the two boys, and the masked demon. They are very different but all important in their own ways. The two boys are very normal, wearing everyday clothing, being at one end of the scale, where as our classic horror villain was at the other end, being very abnormal and an actual psychopath. The trailer gives an insight into the characters they are likely to see in the film and there is instantly a feeling that they should side with the two boys when they watch the actual film.
There are also definite examples of Binary Opposition in our horror trailer also. With the main example being the characters in the trailer. The two boys being very normal, with no outrageous or noticeable unique qualities differentiating them from others of their age group. Opposing this however is the obvious evil character in the trailer. He is in fact very abnormal and clearly not an average human like the boys. We thought it was important to show the opposition of characters as there is then a clear divide between good and evil. The other example of Binary Opposition is a less obvious one, in the weather and the times used when filming. When we were filming the equilibrium stage of the trailer, we wanted to show calm and normality, so filmed in sunny, bright conditions. However opposing this, we filmed in darkened, dusky condition when we wanted to add an air of horror and creepiness to the trailer. Opposing the initial bright conditions. This was important to the trailer as we needed to show that the film would become scary and the perfect way to do this was by the dark conditions and use of fabricated lighting. Covering both ends of the binary scale.
The story begins with two friends in a car, driving through country roads, seemingly happy and they're just looking for something to do. There is a clear bond between the pair, shown by the way they are laughing and chatting in an informal way. The pair eventually end their journey when they pull up on the side of the road and see a mysterious figure running through the woods. Intrigued, the pair decide to investigate and follow the character, to be led into an abandoned church. Although the place is very quiet and somewhat peaceful, there is a definite sense of fear amongst the characters (Kieran Browne and Louis Caseley). As the light begins to fade over the abandoned ruins, the intensity increases and the atmosphere becomes very tense. While the boys are looking around the ruins, they become separated, unable to find each other, until Louis sees the figure standing in a gap in the ruin walls, as he escapes and runs from the scene, his friend Kieran screams his name while trying to search, but to no avail. Kieran is then "caught" by the un-identified figure, due to the burlap sack which covers his head, leading Louis to think his friend has been killed.
As the film continues, Louis starts to see Kieran's name everywhere he goes, thoughts of his death, and weather it was his fault plague him, eventually taking over his entire life. Negatively effecting his social life to the point which he could actually be considered mentally insane. The twist in the movie comes when Louis decides to visit the place where Kieran was supposedly killed by the demon, only to find out that he wasn't actually killed, but in an attempt to kill who he thinks is the killer. he actually kills Kieran, as Kieran wasn't actually dead in the first place, in-turn becoming the killer himself. This part of the film is not shown in the trailer, to allow for the audience to be surprised when they actually go and see the film in the cinema.
The film mainly follows Todorov's theory about structure. With a clear equilibrium at the beginning, with the two friends in the car, followed by the problem, the recognition, the fixing the problem stages, however the twist in our film means there is simply no second equilibrium. Due to Louis being killed at the end of the film, the film ends in sadness, which is reasonably uncommon in film, but more common in horror film. This is done to play on the audiences mind, for example if the film ended and everything was okay, the element of fear would disappear from the film. However as there is no calm, or death of the evil character, the audience would leave the cinema thinking "what if that happened to me?" Which is exactly what horror producers want because it keeps viewers talking about their films and it keeps them coming back for more.
The key characters in the trailer are the two boys, and the masked demon. They are very different but all important in their own ways. The two boys are very normal, wearing everyday clothing, being at one end of the scale, where as our classic horror villain was at the other end, being very abnormal and an actual psychopath. The trailer gives an insight into the characters they are likely to see in the film and there is instantly a feeling that they should side with the two boys when they watch the actual film.
There are also definite examples of Binary Opposition in our horror trailer also. With the main example being the characters in the trailer. The two boys being very normal, with no outrageous or noticeable unique qualities differentiating them from others of their age group. Opposing this however is the obvious evil character in the trailer. He is in fact very abnormal and clearly not an average human like the boys. We thought it was important to show the opposition of characters as there is then a clear divide between good and evil. The other example of Binary Opposition is a less obvious one, in the weather and the times used when filming. When we were filming the equilibrium stage of the trailer, we wanted to show calm and normality, so filmed in sunny, bright conditions. However opposing this, we filmed in darkened, dusky condition when we wanted to add an air of horror and creepiness to the trailer. Opposing the initial bright conditions. This was important to the trailer as we needed to show that the film would become scary and the perfect way to do this was by the dark conditions and use of fabricated lighting. Covering both ends of the binary scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment