Inter-textual References of Our Thriller

Inter-textual References

When planning our film, we decided to do a lot of research on other previous psychological thrillers that have been very successful. It was very important that we captured what the techniques the film used in order to be effective. It was important that our film was original and separate from past movies but thought it was very important to research into why these films were so successful.

Our first inter-textual reference is the main plot of the film. We aimed to replicate the idea of not knowing whether you are dreaming or if what you are experiencing is reality. This idea is very popular within the psychological thriller genre so we decided that we would make our own take on it. From this idea, we felt that the film ‘Inception’ could be a key film to inspire us. After reading the plot and watching the film we established that ‘Inception’ was exactly the type of film we would like to make. The key idea being that the audience are un-aware of whether the character is dreaming or in reality. This creates a link between characters and audience and breaks down the wall that we often see with other films that make the character less relatable.  In the film ‘Inception’ we one of the main characters Leonardo Di Caprio wake up. The director decided to use a close-up which we felt was successful in demonstrating whether the character is asleep or if he is dreaming. After seeing this we decided to include this in our thriller opening. It is key when establishing whether our main character is awake or not, yet shows his discomfort with the experience as he is being tormented within the dreams.

Leonardo Di Caprio in 'Inception'

Another key inter-textual reference is shown with our other main character Tom Rush. Within the first minute and a half of the piece, Rush’s face is often out of the frame or not visible. This was purposeful as when we conducted our research into dreaming we came across a fact which stated that when we dream we do not depict faces. We then decided to include this idea in our film. In doing this it furthered the difference between dreaming and reality. We only see the Tom Rush’s face towards the end of the piece when he blows the candle out. This was done to show that the last scene in which Josh Matterson (our other character) is being tormented by Rush is real and he is no longer dreaming. This links to the film ‘Harvey’ which only allows the films make character and the audience to see 6ft3 Rabbit that features in the film as well. This idea is shared between the two films as we see it’s only the audience and Josh Matterson that can see our antagonist Rush. This idea became very complex and we had to consider every detail to portray this inter-textual reference.

 To conclude the inter-textual reference that I have discussed allows us to show what knowledge we have on film but also allowed us to show how much research we did to display this sort of complex idea. Also this layer of inter-textual knowledge meant that we could provide more understanding for our audience who could enjoy and benefit further from the films plot.