In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the begining of the trailer their is a establishing shot of the setting of the house that Cassie and Sarah move into and haunted by Helen. I have compared this to Texas Chainsaw Massacre when the audience is introduced to house in which the story takes place in and around.


In the top still (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), there is a pathetic fallacy in the weather as it looks like there is going to be a storm and the house looks old and run down, a typical horror setting. But in Let Me Play, the weather looks bleak and miserable, a typical British setting, but doesn't look like a storm is coming and also the house is quite modern, not a typical horror setting, however it is big and victorian looking inside giving a spooky, old-fashion feel.


The setting really sets up the narrative. In horror it is normally the old, abandoned house where the killer lives and the main protagonists "stupidly" go in the house and die. Halloween (1978) has a different setting of a surbian to emphasis the boring life that the teens have to endure and drink, smoke and have sex to be "rebels", to break away from their boring lives.


The house that Let Me Play is set in is where Helen died in the 30s and is now where she is haunting the main characters. From the outside it breaks the conventions of horror; it looks plain and modernish, but as the narrative progresses that changes and the audience realises that this is a typical setting of horror.

In this shot, we are introduced to the monster, Helen, who appears from no where watching Cassie as she sleeps. The left hand still is from Dawn of the Dead (2004) introduces a zombie in the form of a little girl, similar to Helen. At first she looks harmless but turn she "kills" Ana's boyfriend. My still is clear but a little bit grainy to emphasis that this is supernatural and that she is part of the return of the repressed.

During filming, we created a blue filter effect by using flashlights and the darkness in the cellar. Let Me In uses a green filter, while Let Me Play uses a blue filter. This was done to create a cold feel. The constrast between the orange light from above the cellar and the blue light from the cellar, emphasis that the cellar is the source of the problem; Helen's body was discovered there, Helen crawls out of it and Sarah discovers the truth there.

Cellars in Horror are where things/secrets are buried. The theme in most Horror films is the return of the repressed; Halloween (1978), The Return (2006), Walled In (2009), in which the past returns to haunt those involved, e.g. in Halloween, Michael out of nowhere kills his sister after she has sex with her boyfriend and is sent to a mental hospital. After escaping, he goes on a ramage killing those teens who have had sex. There was no particular reason why he kills; "something pure evil." It is Freud who came up with the idea of the ideas/memories that are trapped/repressed in our minds our realesed by a single code, e.g. returning home, distrubing the dead or any sort of action etc. that sparks it. In Let Me Play, Helen is woken from her "sleep" when Cassie and Sarah move in to the house, in which she was killed in by her mother and her body left in the cellar, where the police found her.   

Over the Shoulder Shot was used to make the audience feel involved. In the case of Let Me Play the audience watches Cassie playing with "someone", but she is only playing on her own. This gains concern for her well being from us and creates concern. We, the audience, are placed into the film. We are part of the story, someone who is watching this happening, making the audience feel part of the narrative creates the emotion of 'wanting', needing them to be there and creating fear for their lives as well as the characters when Helen finally unleashes her fury on the girls.

These stills show medium shots of the leading girls; Abby (Let Me In) is an anti-hero, while Cassie (Let Me Play) is the final girl. This shots show  the expression of the characters; Abby tells Owen that she needs blood as she is a vampire, while Cassie is using her body langusge to show that she is searching for something and a few seconds after screams after the cellar door is slamed shut on its own (was orginally in the storyboard, but was cut out during editing).  Abby could be either Cassie or Helen in the film, as Cassie is a innocent as is Abby whose hunger for blood was forced on her when she was changed and Cassie has come back for a reason and is doing what she is doing because she has to. She is a ghost and normally ghosts in films have "unfinished business".

This shots come from Twins of Evil (1971) and Let Me Play. In both of these shots we and one of the leading women see what the "monster" is. Frieda in Twins of evil is an anti-villian as she over time turns into a vampire and thus evil, while Cassie in Let Me Play is the final girl. Frieda discovers the count is a vampire and Cassie discovers Helen is evil and haunting her. Both Frieda and Cassie look alarm at what they have seen; the count with no reflection and Helen in Cassie's bed.

Walled In (2009) and Let Me Play have a scene in the trailer where something grabs you. This is unexplainable for the characters and makes most audience jump as they don't know what it is or why it grabbed you. This is a horror convention. The audience feels attached to the main character and are protective and worried when something unknown or supernatuarl grabs them.

I have compared the scene in which Helen climbs out of the cellar to a similar scene from Nosferatu (1922). This two shots both show the monster climbing stairs. There is a grainy effect on both of the shots. There is natural expressive lighting, down in the cellar there is blue lightning to connote coldness, which was created by using shop torches in the dark. 

Expressive, non-naturalistic camerawork was used during post-production in the editing stages in which a grainy effect was used to create a old feel and emphasis that Helen is the return of the repressed in the film's narrative. This technique was inspired by the german expressionism. During the scene, as Helen climbs out of the cellar there is a non-diegetic, creepy version of "ring o roses" which connotes that the innocence of children is has been changed to dark and evil.

The mirror reflects a different side to us. Mirrors can be scary something, particularly in a empty house or ballet studio. We can see things that aren't really there. It can play games with our minds. Black Swan (2010) was inspiration for this sequence/scene. The monster is seen in the mirror. 

Roland Barthes' structuralism n narrative theory can be applied to this horror. Cassie and Helen are binary oppositions; Cassie has innocence while Helen is evil. The nyrsery rhyme is meant to create a very sinister atmosphere which makes the awarness of the existing of the binary opposites (evil and good) along with the doll and the "creepy" ghost child (return of the repressed).