Inner Evil - Student Textual Analysis

Inner evil is a student made thriller opening, you can see the video for it below.

In terms of how much is introduced, there is not a whole lot however it makes us ask questions and learn a bit about the character. There are two assumptions that we can make from this plot

1. The girl is constantly paranoid, she has scary visions or dreams where she is getting or has been abused that we can not yet tell apart in terms of whether they could happen or are only her imaginations, the plot could be about this girl constantly living in her own fear worrying about things that could happen and 'what if's and that is the concept behind her idea of the inner evil - she is her own worst enemy.
2. The girl is living in fear due to consequences of her own actions, she may have done something where she knows she will be taken vengeance to and for that reason is always on the look out.

Either way, we can assume that the plot will be full of tension and suspense, therefore quite thrilling, there are questions to be answered such as 'why is the girl so afraid' and 'who is the girl following her, is it imagination or reality?' which is a good thing because it keeps us guessing and therefore cause us to keep watching.

We have only been introduced to two characters, one being the paranoid girl you can see for the majority of the video and the other being someone we are unsure of resembling that girl who we can guess that is either a figment of imagination, inner evil character or a real life replica of her out to get her.

There is no dialogue in this opening, it is mainly heavy breathing and gasping. I personally believe this is effective because silence emphasises fear, when you are quiet it is like you're constantly listening out for something or someone to jump out at you, just like the girl seems to be. It fits in well with the story.

Usual conventions or themes of a thriller is that no answers are immediately revealed, once one question is answered another appears, it keeps the audience on constant edge. I would usually expect a mystery to have been solved, new information to cause a rage or a fight between the good and evil. This film seems to conform to this aspect due to the fact there is an obvious line between who the good and evil is, especially due to the evil wearing dark and the good wearing light clothes, however it challenges the typical element of this genre as it seems that the good and evil are the same person and the girl is fighting a battle against herself, which I find very interesting.

I really like the use of flash-forwards and flashbacks to visions that this girl has whether they may be real or not, for example in the video above from 1:55 - 2:05 where we are shown the girl being kid-knapped for a second as she turns round the corner and then realise that we were seeing a worry she had after the real life version of her turned the corner and there was no one there. This is a clever technique as it causes the audience to believe something bad has happened when in fact it hasn't, causing the constant 'rollercoaster' of tension, suspense and relief. This is a flash-forward, an example of a flashback to a vision or a dream she may have had is from 1:36 - 1:43 where she seems to remember seeing someone cut her throat with her key and looks down at it as if she feels she is about to have de-ja-vu.

Overall I think this is an excellent film opening, I like the concept of a thriller however if I decide to incorporate the element into my film opening I would only mildly include it as I would like there to be suspense however I wouldn't like the audience to be strongly on a constant edge as I personally feel the film becomes less enjoyable.