The Butterfly Effect- Spoiler Analysis

The Butterfly Effect, where to begin? If a thriller focuses on mytery and suspense then this is one of the best I have seen. The story begins with a man, hiding under a desk writting a note explaining that if it is found, he is already dead and he is trying to make everything right. Our first question is more of an influx of questions. You're given a glimpse of what you can expect and you're so caught on the 'Who, what where when and why' you know you will sit through the movie, whether you think it is good or bad, just to answer the questions that the first five seconds spark!

 Then we go back to 'Thirteen years earlier' and see our main character at seven years of age. The character struggles with blackouts and loss of memeory in crucial moments of his life. We first see an example of this when his teacher at school shows his mother a picture that he has drawn, it depicts a man standing over two bodies with a knife in his hand and when asked why he drew it, he can't remember. We learn that his father is insane yet we don't know why and his mother takes him for a check up at an instution, pleading with the doctor to tell her he's not got the same symptoms. When Evan is taken to meet his dad he is asking questions when he blacks out, the scene cuts to Evan being pinned down and strangled by his father as he screams 'This must end with me!' The father is killed and Evan released and we know that whatever illness his father has, although the doctors can't see it, there is something wrong that his father is trying to prevent.

We then watch as four children, Evan (our main character), Kayleigh, her borther Tommie and their friend Lennie, head down a completely disastrous path, yet parts of the story are missing from the gaps in Evan's memory. We see Kayleigh and Evan playing in the garden then Kayleigh's dad offers to make a movie with them and next thing we know both the children are standing in the basement without their clothes and Tommie is watching from the stairs, Evan having no idea what's happened. Next we see them playing with a stick of dynamite, putting it in a letter box but before the explosion occurs, we cut to Evan lying on the floor of the woods and his friends screaming to help them with Lennie. We have no idea if Lennie is hurt, we only know he is taken away for a while. When Evan tries to recall the events of the explosion at the cinema by asking Kayleigh she begins to cry and he kisses her, this is witness by her brother who then has a psychotic break at beats up a stranger queueing for popcorn. This raises the question as to what problem Tommie has with Evan and his sister being together? Could it have something to do with what happened in the basement? The last clue we're given is the day Lennie comes home from wherever he was taken and in a junk yard they come across Tommie tying up Evan's dog and dousing him with petrol. As Evan and Tommie try to fight Kayleigh steps in and both end up badly injured. Evan blacks out and when he wakes up Lennie is crying, all that's left of the dog is the charred bag he was put in. This is the final straw for Evan's mother who promtly packs them up and moves out of town, with Evan holding up a sign to Kayleigh promising he'll come back for her.

Evan is now fully grown (in the marvellous form of Ashton Kutcher) and studying at college, living with a scary looking room mate who apparently (for some unknown reason!) gets a lot of sex. Evan comes across the journals he was asked to write as a child to help cure his blackouts and after celebrating seven years without them, after reading a few lines, blacks out and is transported back to the moment in question. Being a teenager again, in surprise, he drops his cigerette and burns himself, when he wakes up he finds the scar on his stomach and we ask ourselves the question that his voice echos "if I can casue scars can I heal them?" Can he change past events and is his memory coming back to him? Evan tries to find the adult Kayleigh and ask he what happened the night they were both in the basement, although he doesn't remember it causes some very painful memories for her and she commits suicide that night. Upon hearing of the death of his oldest and most loved friend, Evan picks a starting point for redemption and attempts to go back to the basement and change the events. When he wakes up, Kayleigh is lying beside him, beautiful and alive but after having so much of his memory altered Evan is confused and has a terrible nosebleed. He quickly catches up with current events and tries to live his life until the return of Tommie who learns that Evan is once again with his sister! In a battle witnessed by Kayleigh, Evan kills Tommie in self defense and is sent to prison where he is ridiculed and raped by the inmates. Knowing there is a way out, he asks his mum to bring his journals and makes his escape by once again altering a huge chunk of time in his life.

Every time Evan alters history something drastically wrong happens, he goes from killing Tommie to institutionalising Lennie for the murder of Tommie, from being the 'it' couple with Kayleigh to her living in squalour and prosituting as he tries to convince her they were once happy together. When seeing a psychic more mystery is added to the already twisted plot as she tell Evan he has no life line, he shouldn't exist. In one of the final changes he makes, he attempts to save the woman and her newborn baby who we learn died in the explosion of the mail box but while doing so gets caught in the explosion himself. He wakes up this time with no arms and everyone around him seems better off. Lennie and Kayleigh are together and happily in love, Tommie is no longer muderous and twisted but relgious and thriving at college and Evan can see that his meddling has caused more harm than good. When he tries to kill himself at this stage, he is saved by Tommie, he doesn't even have control over his death anymore. He learns his mum developed lung cancer after chain smoking because of his accident and when vowing to save her he attempts to alter history again and we watch as he accidentdally kills Kayleigh as a child and then wake up in a hospital, his mum healthy, although the damage caused to his brain is extensive and fatal. When trying to rectify his mistakes through the journals the doctor explains that they don't exist that they are a cover story to mask his guilt and we are left wondering if the whole film we have just watched is really all in his mind?

Then we return to the beginning of the film, all our questions about to be answered. Evan has some home movies and attempts to alter his life through them. He watches the one of his birth as he writes his goodbye note and we hear in a voice over the voice of the psychic telling him he doesn't exist, Kayleigh telling him she would've gone to live with her mum and left her abusive father if she didn't stick around for him, his mother explaining about her previous pregnancies, all still births and how he was her miracle baby.. and then we are transported into the video. Something is going wrong with the birth, the baby is losing oxygen and dying, Kayleigh and Tommie move in with their mother, their life is better, Lennie celebrates his birthday with family, his life is better, the mother comes home with her newborn baby, no explosion, their life is better. Even now right at the end when it shows Evan's mother in a hospital bed we're kept guessing, will a doctor come in and hand her a baby? But it seems Evan did the right thing, he ended hi life before it began so the others had a chance, in the future we see Tommie as valadictorian, Kayleigh getting married... a happy ending for an otherwise thrilling film.

Thriller check list

• Do I think the film held the right amount of mystery and suspense? Yes.
• Do I think the plot was portrayed in the right way to create questions for the audience? Yes.
• Were the characters believable and convincing adding to the mystery? Yes.
• Were the plot twists enough to play with your mind and keep you guessing? Yes.

Therefore, do I think this was sucsessful as a thriller film? Yes! The final twist being the death of the main character before his life began cutting out all of the events of the film! Every time an event changed as did the plot, as did our characters and as did the questions that we needed answering. What I liked most about this film is it did answer every question, at the beginning Evan is found with a knife and doesn't remember why he has it, later on when he goes back in time he picks up the knife to rectify an event that went wrong, the smallest details are considered to answer every question that the audience might have yet every time one is answered a new one has to be asked. An excellent psychological thriller.

The rating I would give this film is 3.5 out of 5 Stars.

Thriller Film Iconography

This collage depicts thriller film iconography. You can see I've screen capped props such a totem and matches. There are also scenes from thriller films that I have screen capped, you can tell these are typical thriller settings as the lighting is dim, the colours are dull creating an air of mystery and they are all places from the 'adult world' such as office blocks or roadsides. Movie posters and DVD covers have also been added in the case of Se7en, the butterfly effect and shutter island. These are some examples of psychological thrillers and even the way they are presented on a shelf for you to buy them from looking at their covers screams thriller. Negative colours or single colours are used to draw focus and there is always a sense of mystery such as what's in the background or who are the characters on the cover? All of this combines to create a collage of thriller iconography.

Thriller Setting

I took this photo as the setting for a thriller film as the photo is of an office, more importantly part of the adult world.  This could serve as a crime office, where an investigation could occur, or even an office of a main character within the film.
This office was originally brightly lit however I edited it, and darkened the contrast, to create a more atmospheric setting.

Coursework Deadlines!

What makes a thriller?

Timeline of title sequence- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This task taught the amount of people that are involved in a the making of a film and just how many slates are needed to credit those involved. These have to be included for legal and copyright reasons and it's up to the director to find interesting ways to included them without losing his audience.

6 Seconds

9 Seconds

12 Seconds

15 Seconds

19 Seconds

21 Seconds

25 Seconds

28 Seconds

33 Seconds

36 Seconds

39 Seconds

43 Seconds

50 Seconds

1 Minute 3 Seconds

1 Minute 5 Seconds

1 Minute 9 Seconds

1 Minute 14 Seconds

1 Minute 19 Seconds

1 minute 21 Seconds

1 minute 24 Seconds

1 Minute 28 Seconds

1 Minute 31 Seconds

1 Minute 34 Seconds

1 Minute 39 Seconds

1 Minute 46 Seconds

1 Minute 50 Seconds

1 Minute 54 Seconds

2 Minutes 8 Seconds

2 minutes 21 Seconds

Here is a paper copy of the timeline including information about the music.

Art of the Title- Nine Frame Analysis

In this picture the focus is on the hair that is curled round the nail, on one hand the hair could just be cut at a hairdressers and usually a hair cut is no cause for alarm but the black on white background and the addition of the nail add a more sinister spin and begs the question 'who's hair is it?' It also appears that the nail is pinned to a wall with slashed wall paper which can never mean anything good and to me represents danger and violence.

This shot is interesting as again the colours are dull and plain, blacks and whites and generally dark colours however the splash of red from the flowers draws attention to the water. Having the flowers as the prominent feature is affective as the names listed are written directly above and are more difficult to ignore. The red can also signify danger, the flowers have been tossed aside into the water and forgotten about, this can open up the question of 'lost love' as a theme but coupled with the atmosphere of danger and gloom of the colours we can begin to question how one might have lost their love.

The most interesting thing in this shot is the font. In the title the letter 'A' has been replaced by a triangle symbol in a different colour to the rest of the writting. This could just be for effect or perhaps a logo of a company?

The colours used in this screenshot create a depressing atmosphere as it differs from the others by having no splash of colour at all. The credits however do stick out as everything written in white has been position over a darker background. From the black grass to the far away city with smoke pouring from a chimney, you are already getting the feel that this is a thriller film.

This is the shot that disturbs me the most. In other shots you can see that they use characters for this film yet this is clearly using a doll as a character. The doll is neither smiling or something you would give to a child to play with so defeats the function of a doll and as it isn't being held up by a human, just standing alone on a hill, it creates the illusion of perhaps a paranormal presence.

The point of a thriller or horror film where we all start shouting at our poor victims 'DON'T GO IN THERE ' is always at the dark, creepy looking woods and to our disappointment they never listen. To show this in the title sequence already gives you the impression that at some point in this film you are going to be desperately shouting at your screen and at least one of our characters probably wont be present at the end of the film!

This shot of the character combined with the credit would imply that here 'Hugh Dillion' is the  character in question here. This is effective as it's a legal requirement to credit the people involved in the film and combining it with the introduction of our characters allows you to continue trying to tell the story while the credits are displayed on the screen.

This shot is a great example of atmosphere as the spotlight behind the name creates an silhouette effect on the characters in the scene. Combining that with the fog that surrounds them it creates the idea of danger however on the other hand you can see the couple are dancing which can instead, if looking at this picture alone, convince you of a romantic atmosphere.

In this screen shot we can see a man who appears to be running... through a garden... in the middle of the night. If you hadn't already gathered from the previous shots this one it definitely confirms that the theme of this is a thriller fil

Lesson 1

"Whoever gives us the information, gives us our lifestyle"

This was my interpretation of the quote 'Whoever controls the media, controls the culture.'