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Research into genre + Similar Films

Thriller genre research (click on red text to be directed to the SlideShare website, to see the PowerPoint in full screen)

The genre of our film is a supernatural thriller, as it follows the story of a woman, who, when going about her day to day life, believes she keeps seeing the figure of a deceased family member popping up at random moments. She believes she is going crazy, and the audience are shown through flashbacks that the family member was murdered and she witnessed it. The murder was possibly through a fatal stabbing. During the film, it is shown that the family member is attempting to talk to them, which makes her seem like she is going crazy. However, at the end, there is a shocking twist and it is revealed that she is actually the one who was murdered.

 A film that has a similar storyline is The Others, which is about a mother and her two children who reside in a huge house during the War. The children have a rare disease, which means that the curtains must always be drawn as they cannot look at the natural light. The family are served by a maid, a gardener and a young mute girl, and when they turn up to the house, Grace (the children's mother) begins experiencing strange events and this leads her to believing that there are others in her house. Her daughter, Anne, is seen various times drawing pictures of the 'others' who live in their house, and says that there is a young boy named Victor. The strange events in the house continue, such as the doors being left unlocked, even though Grace has a rule that before unlocking one door, the door behind must be locked. Following this, the children wake up one day screaming, because the curtains have been taken down by the others, but Grace accuses the help. However, they realise that the light no longer affects them, which foreshadows what will happen later in the plot. Grace finds the graves of the help, and realises that they are deceased. It is revealed that Grace and her children are actually dead, as Grace, unable to cope, smothered her children before shooting herself. Victor's family are unable to move their spirits on and leave the house.

Another similar film is The Orphanage, which is a Spanish horror film, and the plot centres around the main character, Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. She is at the orphanage, as she plans to turn the building into a home for disabled children, along with her husband. Simon is disabled, and is HIV positive, which he contracted from his biological mother, which is learned when a social worker visits them. Simon claims that he has befriended a young boy, who wears a sack mask, named Tomas. When the new disability home opens, Laura argues with Simon, as his friend told him that Laura was not his biological mother and that he was going to die soon. Simon hides from her. When Laura tries to look for him, she encounters a young child wearing a sack over his head. The child shoves her into the bathroom and locks her in. When she escapes, Simon is still missing. The police inform they believe the social worker may have taken the child. Six months go by, and Simon is still missing. Laura spots the social worker, just before she is hit by a car and killed. It is revealed that the social worker had a son named Tomas, who lived at the orphanage, but was kept hidden due to face deformities. The other children at the orphanage had taken his mask, and embarassed about his disability, he had hidden in a sea cave, and ultimately drown. When Laura seeks a medium, to try and find Simon, it is found there are more child ghosts in the building, who were at the orphanage when Laura was. They were killed by the social worker, in revenge for them causing the death of Tomas. She plays a childhood game with the spirits, in order to lead her to Simon's body, who was killed when he fell. Laura overdoses after and moves on with the other children.

Session 9 is psychological horror film, which is set in Danvers State Hospital, when a crew go into the building in order to remove the dangerous asbestos. During their work at the hospital, the crew find a box of nine taped sessions of a patient, Mary Hobbes, who had an identity disorder. The tapes reveal information about what happened in her home town many years before, in which she talks about her different identities. It is revealed that one identity, named Simon, the other identities are scared of this one. As the film progresses, more is found out about the different identities of Mary. It is revealed that "Simon", one of the identities, killed the parents and brother of Mary. Towards the end of film, one of the workers is possessed by Simon, and kills the others.

The Orphanage and The Others are useful to look at as similar films, as they both feature spirits who are trapped in the human world. In The Others, the mother and her children do not realise that they are no longer alive, as the mother, who is a devout Catholic, believes that she was given a second chance by God after she actually killed herself and her children. (which is revealed at the end) The spirits of the family continue to stay in their mansion, and do not realise that they are dead, despite many hints, such as their maid mysteriously leaving, and "supernatural" happenings in the house. In our own film plot line, the main character believes that she is being haunted by her family member, who she also believes she witnessed their murder, however, it is revealed that she is the one that is dead, and her spirit has remained in the human world. The Orphanage also features child spirits, who remain at the site of their death. Session 9 also features supernatural beings, in which when one of the workers finds the tapes of a former patient, it leads to the spirit appearing at the hospital, and possessing one of the workers into killing the other workers at the end of the film.

It is useful to look at similar films to our plot line, so that we can see what audiences, who have watched these films, think about them, so I had a look at reviews to see if the audience wrote anything about the plot lines, and what they thought about how they were shown. I found that from customer reviews on Amazon.com for The Others that many viewers found the plot line to be predictable, and features the 'cheap trick' of having the main characters be dead all along, which may not make for it to be an enjoyable film. However, some of the customers who reviewed the film found it to be decent, and didn't predict the twist at the end of the film, so it can be said that reviews for The Others are mixed, and therefore our film, with a similar storyline could also be enjoyed.

I also looked at the reviews on IMDB for The Orphanage, in which there were many positive reviews for the film, despite it being a Spanish speaking horror film. (Many of the reviews rated lower stars were from customers who did not realise it was in Spanish with English subtitles!)  Many customers said that the film was incredibly chilling piece of work and is scary and moving. However, again, some customers said that the film had a tired, worn premise, that is generally similar to other horror films. A few customers also commented about the advertised genre of the film, which is shown to be a horror film, however. many thought this was incorrect, as it was more likely to be a moving drama, as the plot line involves a mother who's child goes missing and is accidently killed, with a lot of supernatural element.

Finally, I looked at the reviews for Session 9 on Rotten Tomatoes. It receieved an average rating of 6.2 out of 10. Some of the audience said that the film, while it was underrated at the time of its release, it is a successful film, through the use of its atmosphere and tension to leave viewers scared. It seems that with this film as well, some of the audience found the film predictable, with a disappointing plot that relies on the eerie atmosphere to keep the audience engaged. However, most of the reviews for this film are generally positive, as it creates an incredibly creepy atmosphere that is very realistic on screen. In general, the reviews hail the film as being creepy, tense and delievering excellent chills to the audience.

In general, from looking at these similar films, it can be found that the storylines of the films seem to be good, however, for our film, we must try and make sure that it is not predicable to the audience what is going to happen, as this was a common theme throughout when reading the reviews for three different films. However, a chilling psychological atmosphere is something that can easily save a film from being a generic horror thriller, and this is something we can look into to make our short film be a good one.

Research into Thriller Genre: Narrative

Most films follow multiple narratives, one of the most common narratives is linear or non-linear. A linear narrative is when the film goes in chronological order, a non-linear narrative is when it is not in chronological order and can have things such as flashbacks in them. Although thrillers have a mixture of linear and non-linear within their films, they tend to be more linear, this is because if it was all non-linear, then the audience would know what happens at the end before even watching the build up towards it. This would take away the suspense and tension out of many scenes as the audience already knows what has happened to the characters. For example, Eden Lake has a linear narrative, if it was non-linear then the audience would know that both Jenny and Steve die, resulting in a lack of suspense and tension in the film.

 

Another narrative films can be is restricted or unrestricted. Thrillers also tend to be a mixture of these too, however they usually are more restricted. This is because if a thriller film is unrestricted then the audience will know what characters have done what and will know more of what's going to happen, taking away the surprise element of the film. Although thrillers aren't usually unrestricted the whole way through, an unrestricted narrative in some scenes can help create suspense. This is because the audience know information about characters that don't know the information about each other, thus the audience may speculate as to what each of the characters are going to do, creating suspense. For example, Eden Lake had a mixture of restricted and unrestricted narrative. It was restricted when the youths stole the car, the audience only knew as much as the main characters, Jenny and Steve, however other parts of the film were unrestricted such as when Jenny ran on top of the spike, the audience was shown the spike before she stood on it, therefore the audience knew more than Jenny. This created suspense as the audience speculated whether or not she would stand on it.

Films can also be either a closed narrative or an open narrative, thriller films tend to be a mixture of this. A closed narrative is when the film ends and the audience is left with no questions, an open narrative is the complete opposite to this, it's when the film leaves many questions unanswered and allows the audience to speculate their own ending. An open narrative is good to do with trilogies because the unanswered question will be answered in the next film, this keeps an audience engaged and excited to see the next film. Shawshank Redemption is a thriller/drama film and has a closed narrative as Red and Andy are shown reunited at the end, however 28 Days Later, which is a Thriller/Sci-fi/Horror, has an open narrative as the audience doesn't know if the surviving characters were saved or not. This shows that thrillers can have either an open or closed narrative without it really affecting the suspense and tension created throughout the film, however a closed narrative works well with Todorov's Equilibrium Theory.

 

Todorov's Equilibrium theory refers to their being an equilibrium (everything is okay and normal) at the start of the film, then there is a disruption (something goes wrong) and then at the end a new equilibrium (everything is okay again) at the end. This theory works in 5 stages; equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempt to repair disruption and new equilibrium. Thrillers tend to follow this narrative, or at least most of it. For example, Eden Lake started off with everything being good and then there was the disruption but no new equilibrium. Shawshank Redemption also followed it mostly, it started off with the disruption which carried on throughout the film until the ending, where everything was good again.

Most thriller films also follow Propp's Characters theory. He proposed that there were eight spheres of action; the villain, the hero, the princess, the donor, the helper, the princesses farther, the dispatcher and the false hero. Thriller films tend to have most of these in their films, however one or two may be missing, but in general, thrillers tend to follow this theory. For example, in 28 Days Later, Jim was the hero, Hannah was the princess, Major West was the false hero and Frank was the farther.

Films can also be either objective or subjective, however most tend to be a mixture. Objective is when the audience observes the characters and what they're doing (they use no POV shots) and subjective is when there is a large amount of POV shots used to put the audience in the characters perspective. Thrillers tend to use a mixture of these. This is because POV shots can be used on vulnerable characters to put the audience in their shoes, this engages the audience into the film a lot more. However objective shots are more to show the audience what is going on, this can create suspense in the scene as the audience watches characters commit their actions, and this is particularly effective when done on the antagonist.

Levi's binary opposition theory is also portrayed in most films, including thrillers. For example, most thriller films have an antagonist and a protagonist, this clearly represents good vs evil. An example of this is in Eden Lake, Jenny and Steve (good) are against the youths (evil), this also represents old vs young. Binary opposites don't just have to be with the characters either, for example, Eden Lake portrayed the city as being safe and the countryside as being dangerous (urban vs rural). This helped build suspense and tension in the film as it used the audience’s common fears, such as urbanoia (being away from civilisation and being isolated). These opposites are particularly effective in thrillers as it makes the good vs bad easily distinguishable for the audience, thus creating more suspense and tension between the two.