Character Analysis

Character Analysis - female protagonist 

The main protagonist in our film opening is a young teenage female. The fact that she is young conforms to horror and psychological conventions that the victim is often from the younger generation. This is because it allows the typically young adult audience to be able to relate to the character more and this therefore increases the dramatic impact of their death. In addition, her gender is important because a typically female victim seems weaker and more vulnerable and this allows the audience to sympathise with them more. We can also link this to Clover's final girl theory that the virginal and innocent girl is the character to survive the killer at the end of the film. However, our opening does not feature a 'final girl' character because the audience can see that this character is not totally pure as she is seemingly on the run for something, suggesting that she has done wrong. 

Her appearance is dirty and scruffy and is therefore not in keeping with the typical appearance of a victim in this genre of films. An example is in Scream (1996) where the female victim in the opening scene is very attractive with styled hair and glamorous makeup. In addition to this, the setting that the female protagonist finds herself in is not expected because she is in a filthy and messy garage room and contrasts to the everyday setting that is usually featured in psychological horrors or slashers. This is because we wanted to challenge the every day mundane conventions in our opening in order to be more original and this also allowed us to be creative with the setting.