My Influences During Production

While this is most certainly an original production, we did have a few outside influences that helped us increase the thrill factor in our title sequence

First and foremost, we were influenced by the widely known psychological horror movie The Shining (1980). While it is approved of by many for it's unique story line and horror elements, there was one scene in particular that never ceased to spook me when watching. Please see the video below to watch the scene.

This scene performs excellent within the movie as it truly makes the hair on the back of peoples' neck spike. The repetition of the same sentence over and over pushes us into our natural born fear of the unknown and of the abnormal. It makes us ask things such as:

 "What could possibly possess someone to spend countless days repeatedly typing up the same mind numbing sentence?" 

"What horrific things are going through Johnny's head as he writes this?" 

"How much psychological damage has Johnny been through... and is he becoming dangerous?"

The masterminds behind this movie knew just how spooky that would be for the eyes of the audience. It really gives a sense of asylum-level mental destruction and shows us just how crazy Johnny has become. Thus, we feel a sense of impending danger and destruction approaching. Within our own title sequence, we recorded a shot similar to that found in The Shining, in which we showed the repetition of a sentence that makes the audience wonder what it means. See the video below to watch what we recorded.

Along with The Shining, another influence was from the iconic 2016 thriller movie The Boy. The entire movie revolves around an eerie doll that a babysitter was hired to watch over, but as the movie goes on, abnormal events lead us to believe the doll is nothing short of alive. The photo to the right shows what the doll looked like.

In my title sequence, I thought the incorporation of a doll would help spike the spooky factor. They are always successful beings in Hollywood for the horror genre due to the fact that, once again, they directly attack the natural human fear of the unknown and of the abnormal. Dolls are also a massive fear in American culture, so attacking peoples' fears in our title sequence is another way to make our thriller more thriller-like. The following is a test shot we had recorded showing our dummy or "doll"