3 Initial Ideas

Horror: ALONE 

A teenage girl is home alone watching a film, everything is as normal. She is in the kitchen getting a bowl of popcorn, when the phone rings, but nobody answers when she picks it up. She goes back to watching the film when the doorbell sounds. When nobody is at the door either, she starts to get suspicious and so she rings her friend to come around. She runs around the house to ensure that all the windows and doors are closed and locked, except she forgets just one door; the garage…A mysterious man enters her house through the garage door, without her knowing. The girls friend arrives at the door, but as she goes to answer it, a deep voice shouts “don’t answer that door”. She turns around to see that the mysterious man is standing at the top of the stairs, pointing a gun towards her. She comes away from the door and turns around to go upstairs after the man. She slowly creeps upstairs to try and find him and to see what he wants from her. She hears the floorboards creaking and then a door slowly swings open creepily. She runs into that room and the door suddenly slams shut behind her but when she goes to get out, it’s locked. The man quickly puts his hand over the girls mouth and drags her down the stairs and into the garage. He locks the garage door and then the trailer ends. At the end of the film, her family has to pay a ransom to free their daughter and then they get her back, report the case to the police, who then track him down. The film then ends as the police catch the criminal, the family watch it on the news and then everything returns to normal.

Crime: ON THE RUN...AGAIN
Two 20 year old men have been on the run from the police for years following a drug deal that went wrong and resulted in a man being shot. Everything is as normal, they are still on the run and the story continues. They only had a limited amount of money when they ran away, so the police know that they are still in the country. The men have been staying in old abandoned houses and buildings for years but haven’t left a single trace of where they have been, or if they have been staying with anyone along the way. The police get a new lead on where the men might be or have been – a witness comes forward and says she believes she saw the men at a local train station. The police of course follow up the lead and check out the CCTV footage from that train station and other train stations around there. They confirm that it is the two men they are after and they follow the CCTV around the station to see where they might have been heading, whether they were getting on a train or if they were just passing through. It turns out the men are only passing through the station building, but the police track them to another station near by and one of the men ends up getting caught by police on the scene. At the end of the film, one of the criminals is locked up, while the police are still looking for the other one and the story ends there.

Horror: GONE

A group of teenage girls are camping in a forest and are messing around and making noises to try and scare one another while they're telling scary stories. When they hear a mysterious noise form somewhere deeper within the forest, they get a little bit scared and creeped out. When they realise one of their friends is missing from the campfire after saying she was going to find signal, the girls think that she is messing around and playing practical jokes. They go back to the campfire and just forget about it, until they hear a loud scream. They all grab torches and the whole group goes out towards the scream and to look for their friend who had been missing for a while now. They don't find her, but it's starting to get a lot darker and so they all agree to go back to the camp and to look for her in the morning if she's not back yet. When they get back to the camp, their fire has been put out and BEWARE has been written in sticks on the ground. There is no site of their friend who went missing, so they have an early night and set out to look for her in the morning. When they wake up, the missing girl's jacket is placed on the ground and looks as though it has been ripped and has blood on it, so they look around the camp for more clues as to where they could be. When there is still no site for her, they pack everything up and set out to find her. At the end of the film, it turns out that the girl spent the night in an old abandoned shed because she couldn't find her way back to the camp but she lost her phone along the way. The girls find her the next morning and ask her what happened, she tells them and everything returns to normal as they set off home. Until they get home and hear that there was an old, escaped murdered on the loose in the forest where they had slept, and it turns out the police caught him in the early hours of the morning, before he could do anything dangerous to the girls.

They would all be rated 15 by the BBFC because of violent/scary scenes which have the potential to be upsetting to anyone below that age.

Todorov's Theory:
 Tzvetan Todorov's narrative theory states that most stories or plots follow the same structure. There are 5 steps:

• Equilibrium - At the start, everything is normal and as it should be.
• Disruption - Something will happen that will disrupt the happiness and normality.
• Realisation - Everyone starts to realise the problem and there is chaos 
• Restored Order - The characters go about fixing the problem and restoring everything back to normal. 
• Equilibrium (again) - Everything is restored and everyone can go back to being happy again.

Strauss' Binary Opposites:
Levi Strauss' binary opposition theory states that every film has binary opposites (the characters). Binary opposites are very frequently used in films especially in horror genres. Good and evil is the most common binary opposition shown throughout the media on different platforms. 

Propp's Character Theory

Vladimir Propp's character theory states that every narrative has 8 different character types which are:

• The Hero: Leads the narrative in some way. Usually searching for something or on some form of quest to succeed. 
• The Villain: Struggles against the hero. Shown to be morally bad - drives the audience away from them, making them support the hero.
• The Donor: Gives the hero something special to help with the quest. Doesn't always have to be physical. 
• The Helper: The helper supports the hero - similar to the donor. Usually appears at critical moments and gives support and guidance like a sidekick. 
• The Princess: May take two forms - object/reward - deliberately done by hero. Could be seen as little in the film or may be an important character.
• The Princess' Father: Gives the task to the hero. Key figure for hero to persuade as father is protective of his daughter. Could also be in competition with the hero. (Propp said it was hard to distinguish.)
• The Dispatcher: The character who sends the hero on a mission - may be a family member and can also be combined with another role.
• The False Hero: Appears to act heroically throughout the film and can be mistaken for the actual hero.