Research- Narrations

    Narrations in horror film varies vastly. They tell the story to the audience and can play a big role in what the audience can and can't know throughout the story. Three narrations that I chose to research are an Unreliable Narration, First-Person,  Subjective Narration, and Fragmented / Nonlinear Narration.

 

Unreliable Narration

    This narration focuses on using psychological means to distort the audience's view of the film. I does thtis by telling the story through a character whose credibility is compromised. This can be either through deception, mental instability, or limited perception. It makes it so that their version of events can’t be fully trusted and often hides the truth of the story. 

    A recent example is Jagged Mind (2023), a psychological horror film that tells its story almost entirely from the main character Billie’s point of view. Billie experiences blackouts and disturbing visions and finds herself reliving the same moments over and over, as if trapped in a time loop connected to her girlfriend, Alex. Those several details show that the story can’t be fully trusted. The strange behavior of other characters suggests that what we’re seeing isn’t a stable reality. By the end of the film, items like photos and diary entries reveal that earlier scenes were influenced by Alex’s manipulation and Billie’s damaged memory. 

A scene from the movie Jagged Mind.

    Another classic example of unreliable narration is Malignant (2021), directed by James Wan, which is a horror film that uses unreliable narration by showing most of the story through Madison’s point of view. She has frightening visions and memories that at first seem like supernatural events. As the story goes on, it becomes clear that her view of reality is broken, and her mind is hiding troubling secrets about who she really is. The film makes both Madison and the audience unsure about what’s real and what is caused by her mind, mixing hallucinations, trauma, and truth. This unreliable narration builds suspense and fear, keeping viewers guessing until the end.

  This technique forces the reader to reevaluate what they believed to be true in the story playing into the psychological horror subgenre.

sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagged_Mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malignant_(2021_film)