Character Types: When strictly abiding to genre conventions, horrors and psychological thrillers tend to utilize these character types:
- Main Protagonist (Hero of the story/Person who saves everyone)
- Main Antagonist (The villain/monster/killer/etc.)
- Stupid teenage or bimbo female character that gets killed at the beginning of the movie
- Scary child/children/baby
- A police officer is involved somehow
- And strictly relating to the psychological thrillers, there is usually a psychopath, emotionally unstable character, or person with a mental disorder
A movie that follows these generic and conventional character types is Final Destination 3 (2006). Look, I'll even show you photos of most of the characters that follow these horror conventions from the movie.
This character is Wendy from the movie, she is the main protagonist (hero) who tries to save her friends from all dying off after a freak roller coaster accident where she lost her beloved boyfriend. What a good person (even though she really didn't need to help all the people from dying, she could've just saved herself and moved on and lived a happy pleasant life but... ya know... then there would be no story...)
Here, in the video link above, are the stupid teenage blond bimbos who are the first to die in any horror movie. They die a horrible death while tanning and drinking slushies(sounds fitting). I'm honestly not sure as to why horror movies always use these characters because the viewer already knows from the start that they're going to die off first. It is just too predictable and I defiantly want to stray from this genre convention.
I have to give it to the movie that the main antagonist is actually pretty original, for it is not the usual villain or monster character. The main antagonist is death itself, like the grim reaper of sorts is killing off each character one by one and taking them as his own. I find this very intriguing because in most horror movies, the main character is usually something that can be fought against, and in this movie the antagonist is something that is impossible to fight because it is not dead or alive... it is just a force of nature in itself. How can a character fight death itself? That is what makes the Final Destination series of movies so compelling in my opinion, for all the characters are fighting something that is nearly impossible to fight, making for a more interesting, less conventional plot.
And then there is the random police officer featured, this one was from Final Destination 2 (2003). Why is a police officer always there as a character in horror related genre films, I guess it is because murders and bad stuff happen so police get involved, but I don't really find it necessary, unless the story has major plans for the character, to include an officer. To me it's just another character that will distract the consumer from the main protagonist and story.
Overall, from todays research I've found that while some aspects of the horror and psychological thriller genre's conventions when it comes to character development are nice, I find that I want my characters to be more unique and less one demential, so instead of including so many characters that will get killed throughout the movie (like all of the Final Destination movies) that the viewer will never be emotionally invested in, I've decided to keep with less characters as to make the fight between the main protagonist and antagonist seem like it has more depth to it. This in return will make the audience feel a stronger connection to the fewer characters I would portray and feel more invested in the plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment