Blackout

Actors:

 Eline de Jong                Rosanne

 Abigaill Henriquez       Jenifer

 Haniel                              Micheal

Directed By: Thomas Drissen

Produced By: Shascha van Eck

Written By: Guus Hens and Thomas Drissen

Released: 9^th August 2010

Genre: Horror

Summary:

A teen age girl is home alone in the middle of the night. She's chatting with her friend on the phone until all of a sudden the whole house suffers from a blackout.
When she explores the house trying to get the electricity back up again an uninvited guest is in her house, when she realises what is happening she tries to run away from the killer. Micheal (killer) manages to catch her and attempts to kill her but gets pushed back, Rosanne manages to kill him. There is then another visitor to see what happened, calling out for Micheal, Rosanne then approaches Jenifer saying ‘I’ve killed Micheal!’ as she is hugging her Jenifer then takes a knife and kills Rosanne.

In this short film there are the usual conventions of a horror film some of which are:

-The Setting: BLACKOUT is set in a dark house, the girl is all alone and there isn’t much light coming in; especially when the electricity goes out. This tells the audience that something is about to happen as it gives you that eerie feel to it.

-Music: throughout BLACKOUT there music being played in the background, a lot of it was screeching noise and big bangs; there was also silence. Using these types of sounds is very effective to the audience as it makes them feel uneasy and it is also a signal to them that something bad is going to happen. In BLACKOUT when the main girl realises that there is someone in her house the screeching  and sounds of violins begin, making the scene more intense.

This films ending was not what was expected by the audience, I think that by doing this it had made it more intense and more surprising for the audience. When Jenifer was comforting Rosanne and ends up killing her was a real shock which played well with this film.

This film is clearly targeted for an audience aged 12 and above (stated in video description). I think that they have done this because there is a lot of jumpy and scary moments in the film which also made me jump e.g. a back shot of the killer dressed in black with a weapon as well as the loud sound effect with it. They have also probably done this because one of the characters does use unsuitable language for those aged under 12.

Overall, I think that this short film was a successful attempt of a horror film as it has all the necessary conventions of a horror film (setting-dark house, music-screeching). I also think that the ending was good too because they had done the unexpected which makes it slightly more original from other horror films.