Deconstruction of Locations & Mise en Scene

Our group want the trailer to be set in a derelict building which then turns into a horror 'game' - similar to the Saw films. The building must look old and grungy with broken glass, tables, chairs etc to emphasize how it has been abandoned.

In Supernatural, there is an old house which has symbols drawn on the walls in red and black. Some are from mythology and are superstitious so we could paint symbols like those on the walls for our trailer. This would be to scare the 'participants' of the game and make the game seem more authentic and disturbing.

Inside the house, it was old, dark and dusty with red and white candles. Red candles represent physical pleasures including lust, courage and strength and white candles represent protection, healing and purity. These are suitable to the protagonists of Supernatural but for our trailer the characters will be victims so white and red candles would be ironic because they are powerless and unprotected.

There were some jars filled with dirty brown water, some with dirty pink-red water with objects in them. These were used suggestively for the audience to think there may be fingers or organs in them.

In the Saw films, there is a different room for every trap and this trap is in a public toilet with tiles missing and rusty pipes. The tube lighting is blue and bright because they do not have a cover which denotes abandonment and how Jigsaw just needs a random room to conduct his 'games'.




In this scene, the character runs through a dark hallway with pieces of paper hanging from the ceiling. We could take inspiration from this and have gruesome pictures hanging from the ceiling and/or words such as 'die' and 'blood' written on the paper to connote what is going to happen to the characters to scare the audience and conform to the horror genre.

There are several cages lined up next to each other with one person in each and they must decide who lives and who dies by pulling two levers - one kill, one die. This a good idea for a 'game' because it conforms to the horror genre of disturbing deaths. Also, the death involves needles pumping acid into the victim which, again, conforms to our horror genre.

The house in Texas Chainsaw Massacre is secluded which is the usual convention for houses in horror films because it places the victim in a hopeless position which is what makes the film more engaging. This was also the case for the house mentioned above in Supernatural.






Leatherface's workshop is full of tools and is dusty and unkempt which emphasizes how he cares more about getting his victims than keeping the place organised. This subverts conventions of the killer because they are usually very organised and systematic because they plan who their victim is and how to get them. However, in our trailer the killer will be organised with the 'games' (like Jigsaw) and the ways in which he kills the victim so if we do show his work place it will be organised.

Overall, from these deconstructions I know our location must be in a secluded area, it can be either a house or a building but it must have symbols on the walls to indicate to the characters that they should not be in there (however, they still stay). The room/s in which the game takes place must have broken glass and old, tarnished furniture on the floor e.g. table/mattress/chair etc to emphasize how the killer does not care about organisation but rather the gory games and torturing/killing his victims.