EXTRA RESEARCH

23/9/14 | RESEARCH | PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR FILMS

Eleanor and I discussed researching into psychological thriller and mental illnesses to determine which to use for our main character Erica. Eleanor did further research following up on the Scoop it work and I researched a couple more Art of the Title opening sequences. “I wanted to conduct some more research into the genre, surrounding the issue of multiple personality disorder (MPD) in the main character, because this is what we want our main character to have. Multiple personality disorder is defined as: ‘a rare dissociative disorder in which two or more personalities with distinct memories and behaviour patterns apparently exist in one individual’. In our film, this is what causes Erica’s sudden change in mood and causes her to go from a harmless young girl to a merciless killer within seconds. Erica’s change is triggered by a flashback in our film to a time when she was bullied.”

“Other psychological horror or thriller films involving multiple personality disorder include Fight Club, Psycho and The Three Faces of Eve. I decided to look into The Three Faces of Eve and find out more about it. It is a about a woman called Eve with multiple personality disorder caused by a traumatic event in her childhood (the death of her grandmother). One of Eve’s personalities even has murderous tendencies and causes her to try and kill her own daughter. This is very similar to our concept so could be useful for giving us ideas as to how a person with MPD is portrayed in films. It could also give us ideas for a title for our film, The Three Faces of Eve is mysterious and intriguing as it immediately creates an image of someone who is confused or not quite together mentally.”