Original horror opening idea: 'The River'

We were always going to choose a location similar to that of the location I posted previously below, originally though we were in a larger group of five (Michael Walters, and Craig Robson) the original idea was a teenager (Craig) felt like he was being followed and then begins to run. He sees a strange person in a mask, and then becomes cornered by more masked people. Before they get too close though a beast, which I suggested could be a POV shot of the camera on a extended tripod swaying side to side, showing the size of it., then finishing with a zoom as the teenager (Craig) screams and the opening comes to a close.It was going to be called 'the harvesters', however after we were informed that a group of five was too big, we split. Myself, Jonathon Fromant and Josh Spoelstra in one group, then Michael Walters and Craig Robson in the other.

This caused an issue for the idea of 'The Harvesters' as we came up with it together, but in the end we all decided to keep the ideas we thought of individually so we shared the ideas respectively. As Michael thought of the majority of the idea to 'the harvesters' we had to come up with something different.

We tossed around a few ideas which came to nothing,(a werewolf, something like the saw franchise). The main idea we stuck with though was a brother and sister playing catch. The ball goes missing, and the boy chases after it, the sister then later goes in after him hearing a scream. The idea was at first more intricate with the sister seeing a memory of her father killing her dad. Her father interrupts the suppressed memory by finding her and saying that her brother was at home, and that her eyes played tricks on her. They walk home as the father looks back at a masked figure, like he knows of the mystery woods already. This idea was far more psychological then it is now, and would have been complicated to portray to the audience with only a 2 minute time limit however, thus we changed the idea and made it more simple.


The final idea was the brother and sister playing catch, the ball goes missing as its thrown into the wood. The boy chases after it then we cut to a scream. The sister worried for his safety, runs in after him whilst we see quick scenes of her being watched through the bushes. She finds the ball then a drop of blood falls from above, in shock she looks up to see her brother hanging from a tree. She moves back in fear and confusion as a group of masked figures surround her. She then screams as they pounce, then the camera fades to black and the title 'The River' appears in a watery font.

We settled with this as our idea because it built up tension well i think, which in my opinion all good horror openings and movies should do. From the norm of two kids playing catch, then - a scream - someone hanged - someone attacked. It gave a good insight of what to expect for the rest of the movie, and hopefully it hooked the audience enough to want to watch on.