References To Other Films and Music

The films “The Ward”, “Identity” and “The Hills Have Eyes” are all films, which could be used as reference points to us. The ideas behind them all link in with our themes. The Ward uses similar techniques to portray madness and identity, as the main protagonist suffers from multiple personality disorder. As well as The Ward, Identity follows a similar plot to this with the idea of multiple personality disorder. Both films are effective as they keep the audience guessing and build up suspense through the film. The use of the non-diegetic soundtrack’s of both films are equally important as well, as they mimic the action and sometimes fuel it.

One of the most important aspects of any horror movie is the music, the score. Not everyone is aware just how important the score is to the horror genre. As the music in horror and thriller films are used to increase fear levels and tension, music in horror is probably the most important. The fear factor of nearly every horror film, with the exception of “reality horror” films such as ‘The Blair witch’. As with most elements in the horror genre, especially the slasher genre, the importance of music emerged with Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho.’ The music in ‘Psycho’, and in particular - the shower scene music, is fundamental for the evolution of music in the horror genre. The violin in that scene is so effective because it is used as percussion, suggesting knife strokes. 

Character Summary

There are 8 main characters in the plot, but in the trailer we only require 6 actors to perform the roles. 

Some are various, as due to the plot, the characters and their grotesque "habits",  a few characters whilst visually being portrayed by someone, their character's personality must be portrayed like their original actor. This sounds complex and difficult, however the trailer does not need the actors to perform this in depth, but merely hint at it.

In the group of friends, there is:

Mark - 18 years old, the latest member of the group. An orphan who has had treatment from rehabilitation in the past for hallucinatory issues and drug abuse, he is usually quiet and reserved but still friendly

Lewis - 19, well-spoken, "young gentleman" of the group. He is in a relationship with Sarah

Sarah - 18, seen as the "dozey blonde". Very calm usually but is easily excitable, as demonstrated from the prospect of going on a small trip away with her friends

Charlotte - 18,  the intelligent and investigative one. She suggests the trip in the first place in order to fully understand the events a year ago. She and Sarah share a trait of curiosity

The escapees who take over the town consist of:

Lily - 29, The one who starts the fire to burn down the asylum and flees along with her closest "associates". She devises the plan to surgically remove peoples faces and use them to replace their own in their attempt at a "new identity". She takes the guise of Charlotte at the end of the film

Steven - 25, The other known escapee. He initially takes the guise of a police officer before eventually taking Lewis'

Unnamed Woman - Perhaps the most insane, she becomes Sarah early but is later forgotten about. She is last seen starting Mark's car after the events of the film.

The Mad Man - The former personality of Mark, he escaped along with the other three, but when he saw what they did to the locals, he went insane, to the point where he ran away and changed his identity completely to forget about it. When Mark returns to the village, his memories slowly come back

Trailer Plot (with Group) - General Outline

Lily, along with a few other mental patients are subject to dangerous experiments in an asylum.

They are desperate to stay alive and leads an escape plan which burns down the building in order to fake their own deaths and escape, they then go to the nearest village which is isolated and kill most of the locals.

They physically replace these victims as a new form of identity and remain there. Meanwhile the victims, now without faces, are placed as scarecrows as a way to scare people away from the village.

One year later, a group of 4 teenagers make their way to the village. Mark, a bit of junkie who has received help in the past for problems, Sarah, best described as a "doll", not the most intelligent, Lewis, a "preppy", well-spoken young man, in a relationship with Sarah, and Charlotte, the journalist, quite intelligent and bossy, almost opposite to Sarah, who was very keen to investigate Asylum.

They enter the village to stay a couple of nights to explore the ruins of the asylum and decide to stay in a local B&B. Whilst looking around the house, Mark discovers an insane man, later revealed to be his former personality who was an escapee from the asylum, in the basement and warns him that the village is not what it seems and to leave, using riddles to taunt his mind. Mark goes back to retrieve two of his friends and return to the basement, but the local has gone, and the friends doubt him due to his previous hallucination habits.

They leave and go out to find Sarah but can't, and so Lewis returns to the B&B where Sarah is in their room looking out the window, Lewis goes up to hug her and in a strain of suspense, she turns around at the last second with clear fresh scars on her face and a menacing smile and he questions about her scars, meanwhile behind him we see a figure approaching with a scalpel.

Meanwhile, Mark and Charlotte explore the town a bit more and come across a completely empty local newsagent. Whilst Mark dismisses it, Charlotte looks closer at the local paper and notices the date which is the date of when the asylum was burnt down. To discover this, she pulls out the article from another newspaper reporting the event which was published the day after. She tries to think of the connection between the asylum and the village, whilst Mark seems to have flashbacks and falls to his knees. He says that he has forgotten something and can't remember.

Mark and Charlotte go looking for Lewis and Sarah. They find Lewis in a cellar along other bodies with removed faces. Whilst there, Charlotte releases him from the table and explains about the 4 escaped mental asylum patients and the villagers, Mark looks at each of the bodies and suddenly his memories start to come back to him, he then sees the insane man again in the corner of the room and he begins to talk to him. He eventually grabs Mark by the throat and throws him at the wall and is knocked unconscious.

He is awoken by Charlotte and Lewis who appear coy and worried about him. After leaving the basement, Charlotte and the rest of the group go in search for a police officer or local figure. However when they find a police officer, the man kills Lewis. Charlotte and Mark run into a corn field  where Charlotte gets separated from Mark. Unknown to the others is that Mark's old personality has taken over his previous one and is now controlling him. This new personality doesn't know who Charlotte is so instead of trying to find her runs off into a forest. Meanwhile, Charlotte calls out for Mark but is met by silence. She is then attacked from behind and dragged into the corn by an unknown figure.

Mark finds Lewis and plans to kill him as his mental personality has taken over. However Lewis is actually the policeman asylum patient and the two get into a scorpion lock, eventually Mark prevails and slices his throat and afterwards in the mind state of both of his personalities  decides to hunt down Lily.

He finds her on a path in the cornfield. She is now in the form of Charlotte, however the work performed on her face has deteriorated as she could get no assistance as her partners have been killed, explaining her extremely grotesque state. They confront each other about the events a year ago and it is at this point the audience discover Mark is actually the last surviving escapee, along with Lily. 

In a surge for revenge, the good Mark tackles her to the ground, disarms her, and holds his knife to her throat. She taunts him by pretending to be Charlotte, suggesting that he wouldn't hurt his friend that he had feelings for. Mark slowly replies by saying "You're right, I wouldn't.." but eventually continues in his other personality's voice stating "..But I would." and kills her.

The final scene shows the last forgotten escapee, still in the guise of Sarah, finding Mark's car unlocked and begins to hot-wire it. Once the engine starts, the final shot shows her beginning to smile menacingly as she did earlier in the film and then cuts to black.

Identity Trailer Analysis

Identity Trailer Analysis from griffin96jake

Film Plot Initial Draft

"Thief" - Initial Draft

A couple, Charlie and Susan, aged 19 and 20, go away for a long weekend in a small rural village via a bus/car, away from their lives for a break. They are followed however, by an ex-classmate of Susan's, who unknown to her had made his way to the village a day earlier and has always had an obsession with her in school and university but she never acknowledged him. Whilst travelling, Susan discovers that neither her phone, nor Charlie's has any signal, but he reassures her, telling her that the whole point of this weekend was to get away from the rest of the world, especially after the recent violent murder cases at home where people's faces had been "stolen".

After meeting the few locals, some of which behave very awkwardly, they stay in the only bed and breakfast in town which is a short walk away through a field. It is made clear through use of camera shots that there are three other people in the B&B, the manager, the maid and one other guest who checked in the day before. While settling in to their room in the evening, Charlie crosses into one of the other rooms of the house to see how their room compares, he finds a loose floorboard in one of them which he investigates out of curiosity. In doing so he discovers an object wrapped in bandages and calls for Susan. The pair remove the bandages to reveal a head with the face clearly and skilfully removed. She panics and runs to get the manager to explain this but locates the maid, who in turn searches for him instead. In a scene of suspense, the maid walks into his office to find a mess, which suggests that a struggle has taken place. The door creeps shut as the manager is stood behind it with a nervous expression but attempts to smile. The maid begins to question him and also asks about the third guest who she hasn't seen since he arrived yesterday, wondering if there's a connection. He denies any knowledge of the incident or the guest and asks her to grab the phone to call the police, which she does with suspicion. The final shot of the scene is a behind shot of the manager who is slowly walking towards the maid with a blade item, whilst she fails to attempt to call for help, stating that the landlines must be down again.

Meanwhile, Susan is pacing the floor in their room in a very nervous state, eager for the maid or manager to return, Charlie suggests they go to find them themselves. Downstairs, in complete silence, Susan sees the office door slightly open and calls for either staff member, with no reply, whilst Charlie notices the front door also slightly open and peers outside. Susan slowly enters the office to discover the maid lying murdered in her blood and screams. She rushes with Charlie out the front door, across the field and into the village to find help, now being night.

In the local pub, the scarred barman states that the landlines are down but offers them the room upstairs to stay the night and attempt to call for help in the next town, which is 10 miles away. He refuses to alert the locals as he believes that because this is a very quiet and peaceful community, the news will unsettle and disturb them. Despite Susan being sceptical, they accept the offer and go to bed, trying to calm themselves from the events of the night.

During the early hours of the morning, Charlie awakes hearing faint calls for help and crying and decides to go and investigate. Susan soon awakes and attempts to find him, and begins to panic when she finds dark patches on the floor, frightened it might be blood. She is startled by Charlie, who insists they go back to bed and try to get some rest. The camera briefly focuses on the left side of Charlie's face which despite the darkness, shows him itching a large scratch or something similar.

Her gets her a glass of water and she goes to sleep, but Charlie goes back to the bathroom mirror and an expression of terror and upset takes over his eyes and lips but the camera does not show his face entirely.

Sometime later, Susan awakes on the floor in a small stone room with bloodied bandages tied around her mouth and her hands tied together lazily with rope. She looks around the room to see a clothes rack at one end lined with different outfits of various men and women, which she identifies as some of the locals, one of which is the outfit of the barman. The other side has a large wooden table, covered in stains of blood and sharp tools with what appears to be skin, more precisely, face segments. At this point she easily spits out the bandages from her mouth.

She then notices someone crying in the corner who appears to be Charlie, she calls his name to which he slowly, mumbles a reply. She asks what is happening but notices the stitches on his face which are visible in the light. Here, the audience discover that this is in fact not Charlie, and is instead the ex-classmate Steven,  who has been surgically removing peoples face tissue and hair and impersonating them, in order to get closer to Susan as he couldn't normally. She also makes the connection to why he trained to be a surgeon at university, why the barman appeared to have scars on his face, why there was a third guest in the B&B and who was behind the recent unexplained murders back home.

 

He explains that while he was getting skilled in this, he failed to replicate Charlie's face successfully due to time and lack of equipment. When he refuses to reveal what he has done with Charlie, she squirms trying to remove her hands from the rope whilst he is turned away which she does, and runs into the priory outside in disbelief and terror, calling for Charlie. This leads to a chase between Susan and Steven, with him claiming that she is rightfully his now. The film comes to a climax when she trips and discovers the body of Charlie, to which Steven grabs her in her disgust and states that she would rather die than live the rest of her life with him. He replies by stating that he wishes to make her happy but she must accept that if he cannot be with her, then he will become her.