Inspiration for Our Thriller

Where did we get our inspiration from?

Existing AS Level Thriller ‘Captive’

The inspiration we took from the AS Level Thriller ‘Captive’, was the animosity of the guilt y individual. We did not want to reveal to the audience immediately who the guilty individual was, as this would be revealed throughout the film. Additionally, the fact that we made the death look like a suicide, was a way to deter the audience from being sure of the guilty party straight away. We felt that keeping the killer anonymous would keep the audience intrigued in the film, and by providing them with little hints and clues, it would leave them trying to solve the case in their own minds. 

TV Crime Thrillers/Dramas

As avid TV watchers, we all enjoy watching new crime thriller/drama series that are aired on ITV or BBC. We watched ‘Broadchurch’, ‘The Missing’, ‘Paranoid’, to name just a few, and from these we were able to a lot of inspiration. The inspiration we sourced from these programmes was mainly based around the crime and mystery elements that we wanted our piece to include. As a lot of these series include murder, or the possibility of murder, we felt that this must be a popular theme for viewers, and this prompted us to use it in our piece. Additionally, nearly all of these programmes included an element of mystery as to who the guilty suspect was. We wanted to use this in our piece as we felt that making the guilty individual a mystery, and having the audience solve the case along with the detectives in the show, was a really efficient way to build tension in the audience, and to get people invested in the narrative.

Double Jeopardy 

‘Double Jeopardy’ is about a woman who runs away with another man after she is framed for the murder of her husband. The husband has faked his own murder in order to get his hands on insurance money. This is one of the thriller films that we watched as part of our research when looking for inspiration for the narrative of our film. From this film, we took inspiration from the love triangle type situation, with the woman running away with another man after her husband was supposedly murdered. We also took inspiration from how the woman was framed for her husband’s murder, as this related to how we thought we wanted our narrative to go. The theme of jealousy is also evident in this film, as the husband that faked his own murder wanted rights to money that his wife had.

Safe Haven

‘Safe Haven’ is themed around a woman who has run away from an abusive relationship by moving to somewhere new. In the new place she is living, she ends up in a relationship with a new man. Still hung up over her, her ex-boyfriend tracks her down and finds that she is in this new relationship. Out of jealousy, he attempts to hurt her new lover, and to kidnap her and take her back. This is another one of the thriller films that we watched as part of our research when looking for inspiration for the narrative of our film. We took inspiration from this with the theme of jealousy of relationships, and with how the ex-boyfriend attempts to hurt the new boyfriend because of this jealousy. 

Radio Play ‘Jealousy’

Another piece that we used for inspiration for our film is a radio play that we found called ‘Jealousy’. It is based on the theme of jealousy taken from ‘The Whistler’. The description of the radio play states “A sick woman is sure that her husband is trying to kill her so he can be with another woman. She therefore decides to make the first move.” We came across this piece when we were researching thrillers with the theme of jealousy. We had never thought to listen to a radio play, however, we found that they are very useful, as they still have a narrative, but are just without footage to go with it. We took inspiration from how the husband is attempting to kill his sick wife, in order for him to be with a new woman. We decided that in our piece, we would use a narrative along the same lines, of a guy trying to kill his girlfriend, so that he can be with another girl.