ALEX: EVALUATION: QUESTION 5

"How did you attract/address your audience?"

Our film will appeal to our audience as we have left open media product on such an open ending; the story could continue in many different ways. The speculation will leave them hanging. I also feel like our film that has not been done in mainstream-media for quite a while; our main character Elijah really does have multiple sides to his personality. A lot of killers in mainstream-film give their characters a straight-forward narrative with progression and basic background. We have a certain degree of complexity behind ours.

I feel that Elijah appeals to our audience as we never quite know how to feel about him. He is very stereotypical to his social group and isn't particularly good looking - unlike many other murderers within the Thriller genre. The character was designed to look sleep-deprived, distant and dirty with his slicked back hair. Many Horror/Thriller films like the idea of disfiguring or taking away the killer's human features (e.g. Michael Myers in 'Halloween' [1978], Jason Voorhees in 'Friday the 13th' [1987]).

Elijah could be likened to Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs [1991]), Jack Torrance (The Shining [1980]), or Norman Bates (Psycho [1960]):

• Relatively 'normal' looking
• Psychologically twisted
• Not visually disfigured
• Dresses in day-to-day clothing 
• White males
• Personality is shown through facial expressions (smug, disturbed etc.)

These example films are all cult-classics, and have all received a rating of 8.5 or above on IMDB.

Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3

Elijah also has this distant personality and smug-ridden face - all the ingredients needed for a killer in this genre. This is also a very safe option, as this character type has clearly been done before - but, is clearly liked.