The Narrative

Shannon Holder
 Genre.
Although they leave me terrified and restless, horror films
are a personal favourite. Like many others, I enjoy the thrill
of being scared and the excitement of not knowing what is
going to happen next. When given the task to create a
horror film, of the sub genre of my choice, I straight away
knew that the sub genre I would choose. Psychological/
supernatural horror films are the sub genre I tend to go for
over slasher and gothic horror as I enjoy trying to work out
the twists before they happen!

...
Inspiration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Lc_OTiyS8 (The Orphan)

How have these films
inspired me in my
own work?
The film, ‘Orphan’, features a demonic/ disturbed child as one of the
main characters. Since watching this film trailer, along with others,
such as ‘The Unborn’ and ‘The Last Exorcism’, I became aware of the
fact that I too, wanted to feature a child in my horror film and base
the story around them. I feel that psychological horror films that do
feature children are extra spine chilling and they add an further
splash of fear that the audience watch these films to feel.

The film, ‘The Uninvited’, inspired me with the twist at the end. I too,
after watching this film, knew that I wanted to feature a big twist, not
only because it is conventional for a psychological horror, but also
because I think this will make my film stand out among the rest.

…
 My Target Audience.
The target audience that I am going to be aiming my promotional package at are between
the ages of 18 and 30. I am going to be swaying more towards the female gender because
this type of horror is for those who enjoy mystery and confusion as opposed to the guts,
gore and gruesomeness that you might encounter in a slasher horror.
She has studied Psychology at a university level and is currently employed with an ABC1
bracket career. I’d say that my target audience would be in a long term, committed
relationship.
She would be a sociable woman, who loves to go out with her friends and family with an
excellent sense of humour.
Some of her main interests and hobbies are reading horror-based novels and watching
horror films as she has an active mind and thrives on enigma and fear.
She loves to attend the cinema at least once a month to watch the newly released horror
films.
Other hobbies include running, shopping, and reading magazines such as Cosmopolitan
and Gratzia, when she craves lighter reading material.

...
 Basic Plot Line 1#
I have chosen to base my film on a story about a young girl who is sent against her
will to a mental institution by her mother. A few years on, the girl then escapes
from the hospital to try and seek revenge on the mother for sending her there.
The girl uses many different types of torment to try and get back at the mother,
and to make her life a misery. She begins by killing her mother’s fiancé, before
using her younger half sister as a pawn in a vicious game of revenge against her
mother. The girl keeps repeating that she will never forget the torment her
mother inflicted upon her; we will wonder what the child is referring to and
might assume that this torment had such an impact on the child that it is this
that drove her insane in the first place. We see the mother terrified and
traumatised by what her child is doing to her and she begins to experience a
range of horrifying visions and occurrences that make her question her own
sanity and make the audience feel sorry for her. The mother then decides to see a
psychiatrist, that tries to find out why she is having these visions. After a few
appointments with the mother, he begins to realize that there is something she
isn't telling him. He takes it upon himself to carry out further investigation into
the woman’s case and he eventually finds a video with the title ‘Ruby’s Ninth
Birthday Party’. He starts to watch the video and sees footage of a girl’s birthday.
…
 We see a shot of her staring at the camera coldly, before the video starts
rewinding really quickly to show a video diary of the girl revealing the abuse
that she has endured. When he takes out the video , he notices that the label
on the video now says ‘Ruby’s Last Birthday Party’. He keeps the video as
‘evidence’. The psychiatrist begins to piece together bits of information that
he was told by the mother and works out that on that night when the
daughter had escaped she was murdered by her mother. When he confronts
the mother, she tries to deny it. He then puts the video in the recorder to
show her the ‘evidence’. The mother tries to kill the man, but their struggle is
interrupted when the video starts to rewind again. The struggle stops as they
both watch video footage of the girl being murdered by the mother. The
mother then grabs the lamp that is close to her and hits the psychiatrist
round the head, where he falls to the floor unconscious. The video is still
playing where we can see Ruby emerging from the TV forcing the mother to
move backwards to try and get away from her dead daughter’s spirit. As she
walks backwards, she falls down the stairs falling unconscious for a few
minutes, waking up to find herself looking in the face of her dead daughter.
Soon after this, as the mother struggles to escape from the situation that she
is in, Ruby begins to smile eerily as the chandelier on her ceiling begins to
shake frantically before falling and killing the mother.

...
So the big twist is that the daughter is a ghost who was using her
supernatural powers to torment her mother . When she said that
she will never forget what the mother had done to her, she was
referring to the abuse and the murder.
The audience are then made aware of the fact that the
mother was the antagonist all along.
 Further Ideas...
I have been thinking of some of the ways in which the daughter can
torment her mother and I have come up with;
• The killing of her fiancé
• Using her younger half sister as a pawn in a vicious game of revenge
against her mother. E.g. The half daughter could be sitting at the
kitchen table drawing a picture, the mother could look at the
drawing and it would be of a little girl. She could ask who is the
picture of, and the half daughter could reply “It’s my friend, (then
the name of the other daughter)”. Also, I thought that the half
daughter could lay the table for three people, instead of just for her
and her mum and would say it is for other daughter.
• Other ideas are welcomed and encouraged!

…
I also thought that I would feature the words
that the daughter says; “I will never forget
what you done to me” both as a strap in
the film trailer, and as a tag line on the
film poster as this will create some
continuity between all three media pieces.

...
Thank you for
listening.