Research and Examples of Influences on our Film

The first influence that has affected our film is The Others. The Others is a Spanish-American supernatural gothic horror, with elements of psychological horror. The film has a similar storyline to our own film. The Others is set in the aftermath of World War One in Jersey, where a mother lives with her two children, who have a rare disease that means they are sensitive to light, in a big mansion in the countryside. Throughout the film, one of the children says that there are 'others' living in the house and so, the family believe they are being haunted, however, there is a twist at the end of the film which reveals that the mother and her two children are the ones who are dead, and the 'others' are the current occupants of the mansion.

Our storyline is similar to The Others, and is therefore an influence for our own film, because our storyline is about Chloe, a student at a sixth form college, who is tragically killed when she and her cousin and best friend, Amy, come into an altercation with a robber at a house. However, Chloe does not realise that she is dead, and throughout the film, she believes that Amy was the one who died on that day, and believes that she is being haunted by her. Towards the end of the film, when Chloe goes to a gravesite, she has a flashback of what happened on that day and realises that she is the one who is dead, when she sees her name on the gravestone.

The servants at the house are also dead, however, they are fully aware of this, and so the gardener covers up graves at the site, with leaves, as the mother has not yet realised that she and her children are dead. She finally finds out that the servants are not alive, when she finds a photo book, which includes photos of the dead.

Orphan is also an influence for our film. The film is about a couple who adopt a 9 year old girl, after losing their unborn child. However, as the film progresses, it is revealed that '9 year old' Esther is actually 33, and had spent time in a mental hospital, as she suffers from a condition that stunts her physical growth. It is revealed that she has killed many people, and usually tries to be adopted by families, as she will lure the father of the family in to try and advance on him sexually. Orphan is an example of an influence in our film, because there is a twist towards the end when the mother finds out that the 9 year old they adopted isn't actually that age. Our film also has a twist in that it is revealed that the main character in the film is dead.

Another influence on our film is the M. Night Shymalan film 'The Sixth Sense'. The film centres on a young boy who encounters ghosts and with the help of child psychologist Dr Malcome Crowe (Bruce Willis), the child attempts to help the dead he encounters and let them be at peace. Towards the end of the film, it is revealed that Malcome Crowe is dead, as he was murdered at the beginning of the film, and didn't realise that he was dead. This is a significant influence as Chloe, the main character within our film is also murdered, however, she does not realise this, and believes that it was her cousin who died. She also goes about her life, unaware, in the same way that Malcome in the Sixth Sense does. This film has a very large influence on our film, as the focus is on the dead and how it is dealt with by people. It also focuses on being haunted, this being the title of our film, and in turn has a very interesting and unsuspected twist involved.

Another influence into our film is Easy Rider in the grave yard scene. For our film, we want to portray some distortion which this film does well. In a their grave yard scene, they have used several effects to create a distorted atmosphere, however they use it to emphasise drugs. For our film, we want to use this technique to emphasise, that our main character Chloe is imagining things and is actually creating a false reality in her head. We want this scene to convey her coming to the realisation that what she thought was true, is in fact false. Similarly to Easy Rider, we will also film this in a grave yard which will create quite an eerie/creepy atmosphere to add to this effect. 

Another influence of our film is Shawshank Redemption. In the scene where Andy walks into the prison, he looks up at the prison and then under an arch doorway which conveys the prisons power and intimidation on him. We would like to do a similar shot to this in the grave yard scene in our film. As Chloe walks into the grave yard, she'll walk under an arch and look up as she's walking through to emphasise that the grave yard is intimidating to her and that she is powerless to what she is about to discover. In this clip, the shot we are influenced by is the very last shot.

Another influence of our film is Stranger Things. We really liked the Stranger Things title and how all the letters mover together and zoom through them into a scene. This is why we thought we would try and do a similar thing. So at the end of our title sequence, all of the letters of our title move together and then we can zoom in on a letter which will take us to the first scene. However we know that this may be difficult to do as we don't have the same advanced technology as Stranger Things.