Page 204 - Student: dazed And Confused

show blood but not to make this the main focus or selling point of the film. The final draft
shows the audience just enough that, like Psycho, they believe that they have seen much

more than they actually have. There is no penetration of a weapon during the attack and

contemporary technology proved unable to convince us that there truly was. The body of
the victim shows no knife slashes when in shot and the knife shows no blood smears on the

blade until the attack is over. How audiences overlooked this blip in realism is a magic long

forgotten but one that obviously worked. Also, no-one ever gets to see the murderer.

There is a silhouette visible through the bright white shower curtain and the occasional

glimpse of a hand. This idea of the real villain of the piece being hidden in shadow appealed
to me and I wanted Stormed to take that one step further by hiding the bad guys in the

depths of the wood and by secreting one of them in plain sight. An interesting idea came to

the fore when watching Psycho -Norman Bates did not need the bread knife to kill Mary, he
was his own instrument. Humans could be deadly weapons in themselves. As the 'evil that

people do' theme has been played out in many different ways and under many different

guises I decided not to write a film about the dark recesses of humanity but about people

who became otherworldly creatures to whom murder and mutilation were base instincts.

The soles of feet, one trainer, one sock, through the jagged hole.
Widen and slow reveal Paul. He is sitting on the porch floor
and facing. His eyes are unfocused. Four thin scratches are torn
into his torso, ripping his white shirt and staining it with blood. his
right leg is bent beneath him at an impossible angle.
(Maddocks, 2009, p27)

I didn't want to follow in the modern horror trend of showing extreme violence as it

happens but take note from Psycho and just show enough to convince audiences that
something terrible had happened.

With the exception of very early silent movies, nothing is ever truly convincing without the

appropriate sounds. Indeed, many films now trade largely from soundtracks. But the score,

while important, is not always necessary. It is the sound effects.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) is an excellent example of sound effects being used to their

maximum potential.