Characters - Costume

Costume is an integral part of any film as it provides a reflection of a character's personality or intentions; therefore we had to carefully consider the costume of the characters in order to portray to the characters, as we as filmmakers perceive them, with clarity to the audience.

Within horror films, costumes are visual clues for the audience to the personality and often the character stereotype. For example in the slasher sub-genre, the Final Girl character is dressed conservatively like Laurie Strode in "Halloween"  who wears a collared shirt, sweater and jeans; her practicality and modesty contrasts with her teenage counterparts who are murdered. Therefore we knew that costumes are an important aspect to consider as they are the basis of the film's tone and an out of place costume would detract the audience from the film world and plot.

Firstly we considered the Temptress' costume, we wanted to use her costume to emphasise her femininity and sexuality. Therefore we chose for her to wear a form fitting red dress- a colour associated with danger, desire and feminine sexuality- as well as black heeled boots; both fitting with the conventional representation of a prostitute within film. 

We also decided as part of the costume for her to wear a coat when she is walking about on the street- partly due to weather practicality as it was extremely cold when shooting at night but also fitting with the idea of the Temptress concealing her true identity and intentions.

With the opening sequence showing Temptress getting ready, we wanted to show her putting on stockings and garter, which is later revealed conceals a knife- the weapon she uses to kill her victim. We decided to use black lacy stockings as it added to stereotypical depiction of a prostitute and added an element of surprise for the concealment of the weapon; however we did have to consider health and safety issues and only placed the knife in the stocking during the filming of the scene.

An integral part of the Temptress costume is her mask, as pictured below, as masks are a key convention within the slasher genre used to conceal the antagonist's identity and to induce fear amongst the audience; this is explained within our posts- concept designs: mask and final design: mask. 

We then had to consider the costume of the male victim; he is a young business man figure so we chose for him to wear a dark suit and tie to symbolise clearly to the audience the stereotype social group he belongs to - with this being the only time you see him on screen alive. We also chose to dress him in a suit as it fitted with our research into the representation of prostitution in media with the man who hires the prostitute wearing a suit - signifying his power within the relationship, which we eventually subvert towards the end of our film opening.

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