Our film is a horror which specifically looks at youth culture and how horror represents youth as a whole. Our aim was to only use actors who were youths themselves so that people who watch this opening can attach to the characters and understand what is going on in their minds. So our target audience was youths but it is not that simple. Although we wanted to appeal to youths, not all of our characters are youths, Chloe's character and her sister Aimee are both meant to represent and portray youths but there is a third and final character. You never see him/her because they remain anonymous throughout the film. This third character is meant to be left to the audience's imagination as to who they are exactly. All we know is that this character is the reason why Aimee is missing, maybe they are a murderer or have kidnapped her.
We did not want to convey the idea of youths as the anonymous character because we realised that to have an adult villain was much more effective and scary. The fact that you do not see them makes the audience feel both uneasy and sorry for Chloe and Aimee. Another element is that if there is a significant age gap between the characters but it is clear that the older character is distinctively the evil one, it helps the story. Many modern day horrors use older villains than the people involved who are meant to be trusted by the audience. It also makes the story more sinister. Although we did have an older more sinister character in mind, we did not use any actors to represent this character as we had to stick to our aims in simplicity but also to keep on track with the forms and conventions of traditional horrors.
This is the image of the sisters sitting together to show and portray both youth and vulnerability
We really liked the idea of vulnerability in horrors through the characters. The fact that we had sisters to use in our story always helps because if they are by themselves with nobody to care for them they can be seen as vulnerable to the outside world and what makes our story sad is that Chloe's character loses her sister. Many horrors dig deep into the ideas of being vulnerable and this is usually represented through sisters or twins. For an example, in The Shining, the two little twin sisters are holding hands to portray their vulnerability but because it is a horror, they are seen with a bloody axe and they are dead.
Finally, in terms of gender, we did not have a specific gender audience because the majority of horrors are aimed at both males and females unlike action movies (boys) and princesses (girls). Gender plays a big role in horrors because girls can quickly change from being all cute and vulnerable to being scary and evil, depending on the film and plot. We wanted to represent youths so horrors that use girls in their youth, tend to focus on the girls being all shy, cute and vulnerable to everyone but hiding a darker inside, this could be good or bad. We portrayed this idea in our film because physically Chloe's character was meant to look shy and vulnerable but she was brave and adventurous in trying to find her sister. Girls in their youth who are goths, emos (generally like horror) etc. are stereotypically shy, cute, vulnerable etc. We represented the vulnerable side by using the sisters holding a flower.
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