Inspiration: The Call

The Call Film Poster

The Call is a 2013 Crime Thriller starring Halle Berry, who plays a veteran 911 operator who deals with the phone call of kidnapped girl, Abigail Breslin, not long after a traumatic experience dealing with the same killer in a previous event.
 

Inspiration:

 
The villain in this movie has a deep psychological obsession which leads to his choice of victim: he targets young girls with long blonde hair in memory of his dead sister. When he kidnaps his victims, he then takes them to his underground lair at the site of his childhood hair where he then proceeds to remove the scalp and hair of the girls. This inspired our group to consider a serial killer who has a particular fetish or obsession in terms of his or her choice of victim; for example, a potential idea was a female burn victim who had lost her hair and thus, turned to killing young girls with long hair in an act of jealousy.
 

The Victims:

 

• Female victims, conforming to common conventions.
• Younger teenagers, which also conforms to common representations.
• The obsession is with blonde hair, as this was the colour of the sister's, which is commonly associated with vulnerability.

 

 

The image to the left shows the first victim seen in the film, Leah. As the image shows, she has long blonde hair, adhering to the claim that the killer has an obsession. As mentioned, the dead sister of the killer, as the audience find out later in the film, also had long blonde hair, which could explain the reasoning behind the killer's fetish.

 

 

 

This image shows the second victim in the film, the one which most prominently features throughout. As the image clearly details, this character also has long blonde hair.

 
 
 
 
 

Having a particular fetish or obsession in terms of the reason behind the villain killing could build the character of the villain and help the audience to understand why they kill. For this reason, we could tale the idea of an obsession in order to further develop the killer's character.

 

 The Trailer:

Attached above is the trailer to The Call, which shows clips of both female victims and also, briefly shows the killer's lair, which features a girl's room with head models wearing blonde wigs, providing the audience with an insight into the reason behind his choice of victims.

Evaluation:

• Despite this film being a thriller, there are slasher horror snippets included, with a serial killer and victim, hence, some of the features included could be used for inspiration for our film opening.
• As explained, having an obsession helps to build the character's personality and also the narrative of any movie, as it at depth to the story and creates suspense when the audience is introduced to the potential victim.
• It also may make casting much easier when it comes to the production of our film opening, and could also be easy to execute.