Being Scared is Good?

Week one of our portfolio project and Chancellor, Jacob, and I are just a little bit nervous. I mean, its definitely an excited nervous because we have reached the point where we get to create a film opening of our choice; choice can truly a scary thing to handle when each group member has wildly different ideas. After some debate over whether martial arts films are more interesting than comedies, and various other discussions of the feasibility of conveying various genres, we decided to settle on a middle ground. 

Jacob, Chancellor, and I have some strong genre convictions

The genre we were all came to agreement on was horror (well, Chancellor would probably run if someone cried "Boo!", but he's willing to face his fears for the greater good). Especially among teenagers like us, the adrenaline rush of being jolted out of our seats through a built-up scare is certainly appealing. Surprisingly, I think our initial fear worked to our advantage as genre-inspiration.

A film I watched recently, called Happy Death Day (2017), really interested me to explore the horror genre, and specifically "slasher" films.

Happy Death Day (2017) trailer

Although it wasn't the most well-made film (particularly due to its fault-ridden plot), I really liked the film's compelling concept as a twist on the archetypal "slasher" film. A focus on teenagers/ young adults and incorporation of modern technology into the film stood out to me as a distinct aspect of the film. With comedic moments and a suspenseful premise, the film was certainly catered to a teenage audience, but didn't feel patronizing like many other films targeted toward a younger audience. Blumhouse Productions (which also produced films like Get Out (2017) and Insidious (2010)) was able to produce this stylistically-interesting film with a relatively low budget. As my group members and I are all teenagers with an extremely low budget, we felt like this type of approach to our film opening could work very well.

Our group hasn't figured out a clear concept for our film opening yet, but we are working on brainstorming a societal issue which we believe we can reflect in our opening. While we haven't exactly decided on a message, we know that we definitely want to include some kind of social commentary.


Blum, J. (Producer) & Landon, C. (Director). (2017). Happy Death Day [Motion Picture]. United States: Universal Pictures. Retrieved March 02, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NTaDm3atkc&t=3s

[Stranger Things Arguing]. (2017, September 27). Retrieved March 2, 2017, from http://gifimage.net/arguing-gif-9/

Happy Death Day (2017). (n.d.). Retrieved March 02, 2018, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5308322/

Happy Death Day (2017) Grosses and Production Budget. (n.d.). Retrieved March 02, 2018, from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=blumhousehorror2018.htm