The film is called 'In the Still of the Night' and follows a housewife who is driven insane by motherhood duties. She murders her husband and daughter, which leaves her scarred and guilty. To dull the pain, she recreates her family by luring strangers to her home and killing them. The trailer challenges horror conventions by being filmed in black and white, having a female murderer, and using quick cuts and flashes without dialogue to build tension. Influences include Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' and the poem 'The Angel in the House' about the role of submissive housewives.

1. EVALUATION
PART 1

2. Our film is called ‘In the Still of the Night’ it was produced by
me (Izabella Tulip-Parkin), Niamh Lees and Ellie Swan. The
film follows a housewife driven insane by the mundane tasks
of motherhood. Leading to her murdering her husband and
daughter that leaves her scarred and guilty, so to dull that
pain she recreates her family with any stranger that is
unlucky enough to find themselves on her door step and relives the kill.

3. A key way in which my trailer has challenged
conventional horror trailers is first the choice we made
to film in black and white. We felt that it enhanced the
quality of filming and we wanted to pay homage to the
more old fashioned horror films, as we massively took
influence from Alfred Hitchcock's film 'Psycho' as the
elegance and simplicity of the horror perfectly
compliments our chosen concept. Another way in
which we wanted to challenge horror conventions was
through the use of a female for the murderer as we felt
that the strong female lead would be a lot more
effective in creating fear and the murderous female was
part of are storyline. This idea was developed after
watching ‘Eden Lake’ as you see the leading female is
driven insane and ends up going on a murdering spree
herself. Another film that influenced use was ‘Misery’
where the leading woman is the killer and her
obsession with one man drives her to do gruesome and
ruthless things. We decided we did not want any
speech to be included in our trailer, but instead was
going to use sound effects such as screams and eerie
music to build the tension.

4. However at times the lack of speech sometimes
slightly reduced the tension in that moment so
would have helped effectively create horror. On the
other hand some choices we made where more
effective like our back to basic style horror by this I
mean the lack of special effects, but instead we
focus on the visuals and use more simple
techniques to put the audience on the edge of their
seats. Another way in which we wanted to
challenge conventional horror trailers was through
our use of quick cuts and flashes to clips. After
analyzing trailers such as ‘The Conjuring’ during
the planning stage of this project we found that the
most effective way to create horror and shock your
audiences was quick flashes of scenes. An idea we
develop which was different to most filming
techniques was our use of stop motion for the two
flashes which feature the leading female shaking
her head this concept was developed from the film
‘Jacobs Ladder’ where he see figures head flicker
and their faces become distorted as he goes
insane. We further challenged the conventions by
including a teaser clip at the end of the trailer, as it
is not as widely used in the industry.

5. We felt it was necessary as that secondary
shock as the end of the trailer stays in the
mind of the viewer and draws them to want
to see the film in cinemas once premiered. A
more literary influence of our trailer was the
poem ‘ The Angel in the House’ by Coventry
Patmore. It was also a popular saying in the
Victorian period describing a woman who is
submissive and devoted to her husband.
This poem caused use to have a deeper
understanding of the harsh reality of being
an housewife and left use wanting to
develop this idea of a house wives mental
turmoil. From this process I have learnt that
a key thing you need to focus when creating
a trailer or poster is the attention to detail
dropping small hints and clues to how the
tale will unfold. I have also got a greater
understanding of the time and commitment
it takes to create a trailer, magazine or
poster. A key way in which we successfully
created the products was through time
management and organization. Set goals
and deadlines for ourselves each week and
making sure to blog for a couple of hours a
week. When constructing a trailer it is key to
make sure that you do not completely give
away all of the plot, but only to give that
audience a taste of what is to come.
An excerpt from The Angel in the House
‘How often flings for nought, and yokes
Her heart to an icicle or whim,
Whose each impatient word provokes
Another, not from her, but him;
While she, too gentle even to force
His penitence by kind replies,
Waits by, expecting his remorse,
With pardon in her pitying eyes;
And if he once, by shame oppress'd,
A comfortable word confers,
She leans and weeps against his breast,
And seems to think the sin was hers;’