Our thriller idea was influenced by a variety of psychological thrillers. We very much liked the idea of a central protagonist who is unconventional. As suggested by our title ("Hysteria") the underlying theme of the film is the mental health of the protagonist, and in our opening sequence we have the protagonist speaking to a psychoanalyst, to re-affirm this idea of the central character's mental fragility. Many psychological thrillers employ the technique of creating a character who is presented as the protagonist, but is deeply flawed. In our film, the protagonists main flaw is her carrying out a sinister deed under the orders of the antagonist.
From our research into audiences expectations regarding thrillers, we found that many appreciated a twist in the plot, to keep the audience guessing as to the outcome of the film.
The idea behind this was that at the end of our "film", it would be revealed that the protagonist had simply endured a vivid hallucination, and the antagonist had been a figment of her imagination. This sort of twist was employed in films such as "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others", where the central characters are not as they appear.
My Addition:
We could not relate the exact relationship of the antagonist and the protagonist in our thriller to any other existing thrillers. The protagonist is mutual to the antagonist and doesn't display any emotion or feelings towards eachother. Unlike in conventional thrillers where the plot line is similar to ours the protagonist would express fear towards the antagonist and the protagonist would try and make contact almost straight away with the protagonist.
One weak example is "The Shining", where the father starts seeing things in the house and gets influenced to be violent towards his family. He can't tell if the illusions he see are actual illusions and his mind is plagued or if they are really there. So the antagonist is the illusions, but instead of putting any influences onto the protagonist the antagonist does nothing, just stares.
Fact File
Sixth Sense:
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Producer(s): Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Barry Mendel
Running Time: 107 minutes
Country: US
Budget: $40 Million
Box Office: 672,806,292
The Others:
Director: Alejanro Amenabar
Producer(s): Fernando Bovaira, Jose Luis Cuerda, Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner
Running Time: 104 minutes
Country: US, Spain, France, Italy
Budget: $17 million
Box Office: $218,947,037
The Shinning:
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Producer(s): Stanley Kubrick
Running Time: 114 minutes (US cut)
Country: US
Budget: $19 million
Box Office: $44,017,374
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