Ever had that one moment you failed and you had a chance to redeem yourself. Than you think to yourself you know what you did wrong and know how to fix it. Than you come up just the slightest bit short, remember that feeling? Well take that feeling and multiply it by 1000, because our class had a chance to redeem ourselves and we fell real short of it.

Last year we had the Macbeth project where our whole class became a group and re made Macbeth into a movie, but set into WW1. This time we had a chance to redeem ourselves. Our class became a group, and we made a horror movie, because our unit focused on how authors, or directors use their style or form to affect us. To get an idea on what frightens people in the horror genre, Elizabeth Barrette narrowed it down quite well with her elements of aversion. So we had to make a horror movie that had these elements of horror in them.

Unlike the Macbeth project we got assigned roles, and had to stay within those roles. I signed up to be an actor, because I felt that’s where I’d make the biggest impact in the movie. We had 17 days to get this movie finished, and those 17 days were one of the biggest grinds of my life. We stayed right from after school right till it got dark, or until someone had to go. During that time, our basketball season was starting, and we had 4 practices a week, Monday to Thursday, 8:00-9:30pm. The only time I’d be at home was to eat and than sleep. Throughout that entire 17 days, I would film till about 6:30, go home, eat, than head right back down to the school. I put a lot of hard work and dedication into this film to make it a masterpiece.

November 17 was amongst us, the whole class nervous to see our final product. As the movie played, we laughed because we knew each other so well and seeing each other being so serious was humorous. I thought the movie wasn’t the best, I was very confused on the storyline and how everything happened. I found it also wasn’t scary, maybe because I acted in it and because I knew the school, but I still didn’t notice many horror elements in it. There were some scenes that gave you the chills, but no jump scares. Ms. Willemse and Mr. Hughes weren’t very happy about the movie, they in fact refused to even comment on it.

The driving question we were supposed to answer was, how does horror reflect and comment on our society? Our movie was supposed to answer this, and our movie answers by using the stereotypical high school people. We also see our society in our movies plot. As the all the people who are in detention, shared this humiliating video online, showing how the bullies get killed. I wish we had some more character establishment in the movie so we can understand who the people are, and how they act, and why they shared it. It was confusing to see who was who and stuff. In the movie it wasn’t shown why we were in detention, it just kind of happened. Also the end was confusing on how the doors just opened. It would’ve made sense to see the killers opening the door so the viewer can see that the character they let free had to live with the guilt of seeing the deaths. I don’t know if I’d say this is a piece of art, but it isn’t something that any ordinary group of grade 12s could pull off in 17 days.

Here is our movie:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqoe32enyy7bxuy/Locked%20In%20Final%20Cut.mp4?dl=0