Marie suffers abuse as a child which causes nightmares and leads her to use drugs and alcohol. Her mental state deteriorates, culminating in her violently killing her boyfriend during a rage. Tormented by voices and hallucinations, her psychological issues overwhelm her and she commits suicide. The film follows Todorov's narrative structure of equilibrium, disruption, reaction/repair, and new equilibrium. However, because it is a horror film, the problem is not resolved and Marie's condition worsens instead of improving. This scares the audience by showing the problem cannot be solved.

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.
Todorov came up with a narrative structure which happens in all films. Firstly, the
equilibrium – this is when everything is normal, the characters are living a normal life
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 becomes worse and
worse in her mental state.
In horror, 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 this could happen to them.