We researched into typical horror conventions and found the theory of the final girl which we have used in our treatment.
The Final Girl Theory refers to the final girl in most horror films who is the last woman or girl alive to face up to the killer, and specifically the only one left to tell the story.
The final girl has been observed in dozens of films, including A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The term was created by C. Clover from her book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Clover suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.
We have followed this convention, as we thought it would be best suited to the theme of our trailer. We have discussed the narrative of our trailer and concluded that it would be most effective for the audience to first see the story through the killer (Mindy) and later shift that perspective into our final girl (Riley).
Before we had agreed to this, we had to uncover some basic facts about who our final girl might be, and what impact will she have in our horror trailer, in order for it to be interesting enough for the audience to want to see.
We had named our final girl Riley, as it seemed best suited for a horror trailer than our first choice, Adelaide, which seemed too romantic to fit into the horror theme. This supports Carol’s notion that most final girls have a unisex name, such as Taylor or Alex.
According to clover, the final girl is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, mainly avoiding the danger the other victims go through. We had discussed that Riley will be portrayed as innocent, and at first borderline ignorant of anything around her. This also links to how she is unaware of her boyfriend Reuben cheating on her with her best friend Stella, until Mindy discovers this herself.
However, we had discussed that later on the trailer, Riley would become hardened by her boyfriends deception and begin mature in order to uncover what danger is causing the killings. Carol states that the final girl is the ‘investigating consciousness’ of the film, moving the narrative forward and as such she displays intelligence, curiosity and vigilance.
Clover also argues that for a film to be successful, the final girl is masculinised. It is also necessary for this surviving character to be female, because she must experience dismal horror, and many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male. Since our targeted audience is a mass hybrid of young adults, we had concluded that the final girl would be one of the main conventions we will apply to our trailer, as we want the audience to feel connected to our character and sympathise with her circumstances.
Clover discusses that the terror has a purpose, in that the female is ‘purified’ if she survives, of undesirable characteristics, such as relentless pursuit of pleasure in her own right.
We had concluded that throughout the end of the trailer, Riley loses her ignorance and egotistic personality as she comes into terms that things are not what they seem, and that her popularity, relationships and personal view of her world are far from what she assumed it to be.
Women are generally stereotyped in film, as domesticated and sexual, defined through men rather than defining themselves. In the horror genre, there are cases where this is challenged and other cases where this is reinforced. An example of where it is reinforced is in vampire films, where women are sexualised through the seductive bite of the vampire. Another point is that the way women are killed by the vampires demonstrates the power that men have over women and makes women seem helpless. Another example in horror films is when women go to 'check out' what is causing a noise they have just heard- ultimately leading to their death.
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