AS Media A Killer's Motive Practical

A Killer's Motive Practical

Brief

Like in the films previously deconstructed, mise-en-scene is carefully planned to be conventional and interact with the actors suitably. Hence, based of the past horror deconstructions I would like to produce a prop that could be used if we were to create a horror film opening.

Research and Planning

In the previous deconstructions I explored psychological horrors. This sub genre of horror is usually identified through a creepy, complex character that acts as the antagonist of the film. In "SE7EN" we managed to predict by the title sequence that the antagonist kills people based on the seven deadly sins. The obsession is shown through props like manipulating articles and biblical references. In "American Horror Story: Murder House" the obsession of a predicted crazed killer is shown through jars of anatomy, photos of Victorian children and a hedge trimmer.

Instead of doing a title sequence, my group and I have chosen to make a film opening. We initially had ideas of combining the genre of psychological horror and some kind of form of urban drama. So that we can highlight real and terrifying urban issues that are usually overlooked through murders. Consequently, we have ideas of featuring an obsessed serial killer to conform to psychological horror conventions.

For my earlier source of inspiration, I looked at Blake Neubert's art work. From this I came up with some ideas including:

• A razor for a weapon.

• Props of eyes, teeth, flesh etc. to make the killer seem obsessed similar to the jars of anatomy shown in "American Horror Story: Murder House".

• Sketches and actual pieces of similar artwork to show that the killer is planning ways to kill their victims.

I liked some of these ideas, but really wanted to research other ideas, especially to link it back to urban dramas. In order to have a really gruesome and memorable signature style or motive for the killer in our opening scene we planned to create a fight scene with a hooded killer and a victim of perhaps a drug addict or dealer to conform to conventions of characters in urban dramas.

From this we came up with ideas for the killer's motive. Influenced by the book "Stone Cold", where a serial killer targets homeless youth, we liked the idea of the antagonist targeting a specific group of people that perhaps, like with drug addicts or the homeless, are negatively criticized and represented in the media. This would be very similar to the killer in "SE7EN", who almost seems themselves as cleansing the world and teaching a lesson by exposing those they see evil and wrong.

As we want a really violent and painful murder to achieve discomfort and feelings of disgust with the audience, we planned to make the death incredibly slow and torturous but equally intense by producing a fight scene. Consequently, I believe using a weapon like a knife or a gun let alone a razor would be too quick and barely intense.

However, that doesn't mean we could still not use inspiration from deconstructions, as we could still use the razor after the death to mutilate the body in a way influenced by Blake Neubert and the jars of anatomy in "American Horror Story: Murder House". It would be completely disgusting and too gruesome to show it on screen, but we could perhaps end with the killer taking out a razor and then cut the scene and return to like teeth or eyes in a pool of blood or maybe even use the masks created.

Production

Prompted by the idea of having props of body parts and my mask design inspired by Neubert, I used the following video as guidance to create a fake eyeball:

In response, is my process of making a similar fake eyeball:

I first used modelling clay instead of 'ellimorph plastic' and rolled this up into a sphere. When happy with the shape, I used a hairdryer to 'set' the clay so that it won't lose its shape. Upon reflection, I felt that the eyeball was slightly too big compared to the iris I printed out and stuck on with a glue gun.

When using clear nail varnish to create the realistic glossy effect of an eyeball, the colour from the ink of the printed iris started to bleed into the white of the eyeball. At 00:53 you can see me using a brush to act like a mop for the green ink. This meant that by the time I was cleaning up the ink, the nail varnish was drying and due to the disruption of my fingers and the paintbrush, this lead to a claggy and dry effect that usually occurs when you touch nail varnish that is still quite wet.

It was incredibly fiddly and the next step of applying the red wool did not help. In the video, there is a lot of care and delicate placement of the wool to make it look as realistic as possible. I chose to apply the wool when the nail varnish was still tacky so it could stick, however, it was not wet enough to properly stick down and consequently, the wool actually dried to my fingers that were coated in nail varnish. Because of this mess, I was desperately trying to stick down the wool and so placed large clumps near the iris, which wasn't very realistic. I tried using wallpaper paste to finally get the wool to stick to the eyeball not myself.

Finally, I applied fake blood to show that the eye has messily been removed. I felt that this step was the only technique that allowed the eyeball to look somewhat gory and realistic. Yet, this too was incredibly messy.

While I had the modelling clay out, I also decided to attempt at creating some teeth. This was not done with a reference video but instead I used a reference photo to try and model the clay into the shape of removed human teeth with the end of a brush. The below process of this is documented below:

Yet, sadly by the time I started modelling, the clay was already beginning to dry. It was very time consuming to try and create the grooves and 'cusps' of teeth with a large brush. Therefore, by the time the shape was coming together, the clay was already dry and began to crumble. I only managed to produce three very poor looking teeth. I really wish I used better tools to sculpt the more quickly and create better details like a crack in the teeth. I aimed to have really aged and gnarly looking teeth and so used a brown ink pad and some bits of yellow from a highlighter. This was an awful selection of colours, but despite the neon choice and ink that usually stains, the colours were not prominent enough.

Outcome

Below are stills of the video to show the outcome of the props:

Personal Comments

Despite, the process being fun to do, the result failed as it was tacky and looked extremely fake. I would definitely blame the mistakes on my lack of detail and persistence, but I was glad I tested out what gore and anatomy would look like before including them in our film. I definitely think that perhaps instead of gore, we should focus on the actual urban drama aspect. Although gore is used in psychological horrors, shown by "SE7EN" and "American Horror Story: Murder House", I believe it needs a lot of planning and carefully selected ideas around it to make sure that it is actually needed in the plot rather than just using poorly made eyeballs and teeth for an immediate recognition of the horror genre.

I would love to attempt this again and would even try out make up effects to hopefully show the brutality of the fight along with these props to create perhaps a really 'gritty' and brutal attack between the victim and the complex killer. However, I think we should focus on the whole idea of targeting certain victims like the homeless, and therefore, link to urban dramas.