My horror film pitch

1. PITCHD Y S T O P I A P I C T U R E S

2. Target Audience
My target audience are teenagers aged 12+
It is not specific to a set social group
From my audience survey I found that my
audience enjoy watching horror films such as:
‘Insidious/paranormal activity/the purge/ The
Walking Dead’
They ‘enjoy the trill’ of being scared and like a
story which has a twist to the film where the
storyline is not typical.

3. GENRE / SUB-GENRE
CONVENTIONS I WILL USE
My film falls into the zombie genre
Some of the conventions I will use from zombie horror
are:
- how the zombies look (dead creatures)
- Flesh eating and blood thirsty
- A curious/naïve girl
One of the conventions I will challenge is the idea that
zombies cannot think for themselves entirely and the
pace of movement of zombies.

4. SYNOPSIS
Starts with a teenage girl watching a news report
Titles roll
Girl having breakfast then going into a flash back into earlier childhoods memories
Back to present, where girl is making a journey
Girl arrives at destination goes into an abandoned looking house
Very blurry and a tense atmosphere- zombies everywhere
1 zombie will be eating flesh, 2: looking directly at girl
Girl rests head where she thinks she is safe but hand crawls in attacks her
Few hours later she is acting like a zombie
Mother comes in calling after girl, girl replies in normal human like character
Ends with the same news report at the beginning but this time the girl gone
missing

5. NARRATIVE /
EXPOSITION
The film will open with a news report- the news
report will be about a local school student who
has gone missing once they have gone into a
building.
It is both with an enigma as well as equilibrium
- Girl watching news on a normal fine day
(equilibrium)
- News report of missing people and local
neighbourhood news (enigma)

6. NARRATIVE - CONFLICT
The flash back brings an element of conflict as to
self identity- who this person is and where she
should go.
The conflict arises when the girl walks into the
haunted building, she sees 2 zombies and is scared.

7. NARRATIVE RISING
ACTION
There will be a scene where the girl thinks she is
safe, with a deep breath she and rests her head
and suddenly a gory hand comes out and attacks
the girl’s face.
The girl behaves like a zombie from then on and
adopts all characteristic of zombies

8. NARRATIVE - CLIMAX
The climax in this story will be when the girl’s
mother comes in and calls her name and the girl
responds to her name in a normal human way.
After girl responds screen goes black and the
news report starts ( news report will tell the
audience that a number of days has passed)

9. NARRATIVE -
RESOLUTION
There is no resolution, after the news report the
film ends and the credits roll.
Audience can make their own interpretation of
what happened to the girl.

10. NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
My film will have a cyclical structure where the
same news report about the missing boy is
repeated in the end but with a different person to
show how the cycle of not being free does not
end.

11. CHARACTERS
News reporter: opens and closes the film with the news of a missing
person
Main character: A naïve girl who is curious and wants to explore
herself, she is representative of the typical teenage girl.
Zombie 1: Eating flesh from a bowl on the floor
Zombie 2: Looking into mirror
Zombie 3: (just hand) grabs onto the face of main character
Mother: Shown in the flash backs as well as the end. Business and
money oriented female who’s into her career more than family.
Flashback scenes:
- Young girl (of main character)
- Scientist
-Mother

12. - Green screen/room which looks like an office with news
bulletins
- House
Flashback:
- lab/house

13. INFLUENCES

14. CREATVITY
5 KILLER SHOTS EACH
- Crab shot which zooms out and makes it look like the room is in fact massive and not
small.
- Montage of flashbacks
- only one part is revealed and then very slowly the rest of the zombie face is revealed
-High angle where the zombie looks like a small dead animal but then jumps out and is
large
5 KILLER EDITING IDEAS
- The camera will change from the news report being on the TV to being on the screen
- The zombie hand which pops out
- Visual features of room (will be dark where you can almost make out what you’re
seeing)
- The sound motif of the nursery rhyme
RECURRING MOTIF / SYMBOL
- A childhood nursery rhyme which is reoccurring throughout (a sting associated with
the mother)
INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCE
- Spy films where there’s a ‘chosen one’
5 THINGS COMMON TO THE GENRE
- Features and looks of zombies
- Sound (eerie/ slow creepy sounds)
-
TWO THINGS UNUSUAL TO THE GENRE
- The zombies (they can think for themselves/use their senses at a very slow pace)

15. CLASSIFICATION (WHY?)
12/12A
There will be an element of violence in my short film where there will be blood and
gore however I will make sure that as stated on the classification I will not ‘dwell’
heavily on the violence and move on straight away.

16. WHY IS THIS RIGHT FOR
TARGET AUDIENCE?
This is the correct target audience as they are
interested in horror films which allow them to
interact and engage fully into what they are
watching by actively decoding the interpretations
of the film. Also, they are able to identify
themselves in the main character who has a
crisis of identify, whether to give into the
conditioning of the haunted house or be true to
who she is.