Research (Exorcist trailer)

In order to research I have decided to view several movie trailer's for ideas for what i might like to put in my own movie trailer. The first of which is the Exorcist,this became one of the most profitable horror films of all time.


Narrative - The Exorcist is about a young girl from America who lives in a nice house with her mother and has a happy life until she is possessed by a demon (later known as the Pazuzu). She starts to change first in attitude but then dramatic changes in her force her mother to try everything to find out whats wrong with her. She has a grotesque physical change as the demon forces her to self harm. Eventually this non-religious women turns to priests to perform an exorcism which is eventually successful.

Casting - This film stars Linda Blair as Regan Macneil, Ellen Burstyn as Chris Macneil and Jason Miller as father Damien Karras.

Target Audience - Adults over the age of eighteen.

Music/soundtrack - The Exorcist uses modern classical compositions along with music written specifically for the film and Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield.

How the audience was addressed - To be honest I think the film makers overdid the scare factor in this film when you talk about the audience's needs. If you can handle this sort of thing then you should be fine,(baring in mind at this time in 1973 where anything was considered scary). When this film first came out people were running out of the cinema and fainting, in some cinemas they even provided sick bags. Now surely that must show how good and horrifying this film really is. Another thing that the Exorcist should be credited with is that it was one of the first films that used special effects, which however scary or shocking the film may be it deserves the credit for it's creative boundaries.
One thing that will always be shocking at what ever era you live in is the strong religious language throughout the film ,expressed by the demon who possesses Regan.

Character Brief

Max - Leader of the group and best friends with Gerald. Confident and like to explore.

Sam - The hard man of the group also likes exploring and is very full of himself. He loves both himself and a challenge.

Lewis - Smart and interlectual. lewis is in love with kate.

Gerald - He is possessed by a demon and starts to trun shockingly satanic firstly with his personality and then his physical appearance.

Charlotte - Typical girl who woke up one day and realised that daddy cant protect her anymore.

Kate - Independent girl who thinks for herself.

Subliminal Messages

We have decided having discussed certain horror films that one of the scariest films of all time is the Exorcist. One of the big things that the makers used to make the film scarier is subliminal messages. Some have caused controversy and some have caused humour, we have decided to put in a subliminal message in our trailer and we wont mention where it is, some people probably wont notice it but if it works then it will be worth it. We have not decided what type of message we will put in our trailer but there will be one.

The Three Basic Types Of Horror Film

There are three different types of horror

1. The supernatural
The supernatural is what we most often think of as a true Horror movie this usually includes supernatural monsters such as vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts and zombies. These are creatures of legend and come from thousands of years of human psychic response to the mysteries of the earth.

2. The scientific
The scientific horror film is where we find the mad scientist(s) creating or discovering something outside of nature; something that will be lost from human control and run riot before being overpowered (usually) by the army, and the world is restored to peace and harmony. The monsters featured in this type of film are often new creations, things we've never imagined or seen elsewhere.

3. The naturalistic
The naturalistic horror films feature monsters which our daily news is often reporting.The monster can also be an animal, such as a bear or a reptile (usually grown to above-average size), or even a group of beasts (ants, bees, spiders, dogs).
Example:In Night of the Living Dead, a radio announcement is heard that links the zombie madness to a returned space probe. In the follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, one of the major characters recalls something his granfather had said that gives a supernatural explanation to the undead plague. The Return of the Living Dead instucts us that zombies can be created from the application of a certain toxic substance managed by the military. For example, the giant bear that runs amok in Grizzly could be hungry due to a lack of his usual foresty foodstuffs (creating a naturalistic horror), or he could be a scientifically altered, perhaps by manmade chemicals in the water supply, to reach a monstrous size and therefore unable to not eat humans to supplement his diet. And in Day of the Dead, the scientists claim to be on the verge of discovering the true reason why the dead walk. This lands the film in the scientific horror realm.

Target Audience

We have decided on our target audience for our section B horror film trailer, and as its a horror film its going to be an 18 rated film and will have lots of violence and gore in it. The target audience will be from ages 18 and above and for mainly males (as its not something you would really want to take your girlfriends to see but if that's what you find romantic then that's fine) and some females.

Planning

In our group we discussed what type of horror film we would like to make a trailer for. We talked about ideas for what could be in it i.e zombies, monsters, demons and so on. In the end we have decided to make a gory type film with demons, we have not decided an exact story for it but we have a rough view on what we will be doing.

Brief

Our task is to make a 1-2 minute trailer for a movie of our own invention. The film will be any genre we wish and the trailer should be appropriate for the target audience.