This is my updated horror film narrative for my A2 media studies coursework on horror films.

1. FilmNarrative
Our psychological horror film’s narrative starts with our protagonist, Marie being
physically and mentally abused by her parents at a young age. This abuse continues on
into her adolescence and it begins affecting her mental capacity as she begins to have
nightmares of herself being attacked or her attacking others. These nightmares have
caused her to lose sleep and this causes her to turn to drugs and alcohol as a release
from her torment and she soon becomes addicted to them. Her addiction causes her
to have horrific hallucinations such as her taking a regular bath and it slowly filling with
blood even though it is only in her mind.
Her boyfriend notices the change in Marie’s behaviour and attempts to help her
through her struggles; but she ends up killing him violently in an unprecedented rage
urged on by her excessive use of alcohol. This leads to her becoming more mentally
unstable which we see as she starts hearing terrifying voices in her head whispering to
her to inflict harm on others and Marie smashing her bedroom mirror because she
imagines that the reflection in the mirror is of her dead boyfriend watching her. At the
end of the film, her psychological torturebecomes too overwhelming and shecommits
suicide by hanging.
Tzvetan Todorov in 1969 simplified the idea of narrative structure into five stages that
occur in all film texts. Firstly, the equilibrium – this is when everything is normal, the
characters are living their regular lives and the audience can relate to this. In our film,
the equilibrium is her living her normal life at first, before all these problems occur.
Then, there is a disruption; something happens to disturb this normality. In our film,
the disruption is when Marie starts having nightmares, and turns to drugs and alcohol.
Next, there is a reaction and repair; characters react to this situation and try to deal
with it. In Todorov’s narrative structure, the problem gets resolved – however, with
our film, because it’s a horror film, the problem does not get solved and Marie ends
up killing her boyfriend. Next, there is a new equilibrium, where the problem is dealt
with and there is a new normality. However, in our film, this does not happen as Marie
worsens in her mental state. In the horror genre, Todorov’s theory only works to an
extent; this is because the problem can’t always be solved. This leads to a heightened
scare for the audience, leaving them feeling hopeless and paranoid that this could
happen to them.
The choices we have made for our narrative have been inspired from other existing
media texts such as the scene where our protagonist breaks her bedroom mirror, this
was inspired by a scene in the successful Psychological horror film ‘Black Swan’ where
the protagonist pushes another character into a mirror, breaking it. This idea of one

2. breaking their own reflection can signify the extent of which their psychological state
has deteriorated. The focus on the characters’ mental state is a convention of
psychological horror films as this gives the audience an insight into what caused them
to decline in the first place.
The choice to make the reason why Marie is mentally unstable her parents was done
so the audience could relate to the character more easily as the experience could have
happened to them with their parents. Also, the fact that the major death of the film is
suicide by hanging is a convention of the psychological sub-genre as they are not
known for showing gore (unlike the slasher sub-genre).