Evaluation Activity 1: Conventions of the Story

We start out with a medium shot of one main character and focusing on her, so the audience can assume that she is the protagonist throughout the film. The use of a girl as the protagonist is subverting conventions for horror films, yet we conform to them later on when she gets killed - as the blonde teenage girl all alone is always the first to die in horror films. We chose a more conservative character for Harriet, which is unconventional as it is usually a more unintelligent girl that gets killed first. This heightens the fear and dread throughout the film.

The regular setting of a school helps to show the audience the normality to contrast with the killings. A school is unassuming and usually not empty, making the film more mysterious as the audience wonders why no one is around. The audience can see how Harriet's character is quite studious where her friends are not but the film also shows the relationship between them as Alex seems worried that she is not answering her phone. However, the audience can also see that the killer and Harriet have some kind of relationship due to the fact that she is being targeted.

The way we hid the antagonist's identity through the costume increased the tension and suspense throughout the film as the audience wonders who is killing off the group of friends. If the audience found out who the antagonist was straight away, it would decrease the tension and the film wouldn't be an effective horror/thriller film. It creates enigmas with the audience about the motive and about who would be next and why. This creates intrigue to continue to watch the film.

We subverted conventions by killing a character in the opening two minutes. This doesn't normally happen in horror films but we felt this would increase the tension and would be an effective cliff-hanger ending before the rest of the film. A cliff-hanger ending is conventional for an opening two minutes as it leaves the audience wanting more and leaves them intrigued for the rest of the film. It leaves them asking questions about what has happened and what is going to happen and makes them want to watch the rest to find out.