Antagonist Costumes Research

Research for antagonist

This research is to show how we came up with our final choices for the outfit/ costume for our antagonist. This is very important as we want to portray our protagonist as being scary and frightful, as they are usually the scare factor of a horror film. 
This picture is from the horror film series of 'Scream', which the antagonist caused the scary elements of these films, as they have hidden their identity, which reveals no characteristics of the person beneath the costume. The use of this costume, as I have said, hides the identity of the antagonist, which would creates an enigma for the audience, on to who this person is underneath the black material. The use of props of having a mask, now known as a 'Scream' mask, shows that anybody could get their hands on one of these, as it was a common Halloween accessory, which would make the audience uneasy as the antagonist could be anyone and could occur in their lives. This may be a good idea to use a mask, which is a common thing, as it would hide their identity, which implies it could be anyone as a vast majority of the public would have this object. The use of an over sized black poncho  which is worn by the 'Scream' antagonist, covers and disguises all of the characteristics of the person, which create a further enigma as the audience are unable to detect who the antagonist is. Having this piece of clothing black symbolises many things as black is symbolic for evil and darkness, which generally antagonist should be classed as they are initiating evil and unspeakable things. Having the contrasting white and black colours emphasises that this would be the last face the victim see, which may be ideal for our opening scene as our antagonist is murderous and deadly. If we use the idea of having something baggy and covering all visible skin, it would mean we wouldbe unable to do make up on the antagonist, which could reduce time, so more dynamic and technical filming can be used, however we want to have a professional, dynamic opening two minutes, so time is not a major issue. The mask we use could be iconic for our antagonist, as this ghoul mask has become iconic over the years, as now it is known as the 'Scream' mask.
 This antagonist is a very well known one, Freddie Krueger, from 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'. As you can see, the clothing for this antagonist consists of striped jumper, ripped jeans and murderous accessory on their right hand. This outfit could be seen as fairly casual and subvert from a stereotypical costume for an antagonist, as usually they have some sort of outfit which separates them from the protagonist and other people within the shot. This may be clever to use as they would symbolise that the antagonist could just be an everyday person, which you would never expect. The use of the colour red symbolises blood and gore which takes place in the film. This colour could be used as there may be an aspect of blood spill in our opening scene, however we would want our antagonist to be scary, which would ensure the audience would be frightened of them, which this colour may not provide. the use of having the 'claw accessory' adds a sense of cruelty and violence, which most horrors consist of . To make our antagonist frightful for the audience we could include some kind of deadly accessory similar to 'Freddie Krueger's. 

This costume is from the film called 'Hostel', which is a gruesome horror film, which consists of this person present in the picture, kidnapping individuals and torturing and teasing them. The use of costume demonstrates the action the antagonist does. The use of the long black apron implies that what they do can get messy, and the red long shirt implies blood is involved as red is commonly related to either blood and gore or love and romance, which due to the genre of the film probably means horror. Similarly to the 'Scream' antagonist, they are wearing a mask which hides their face and adds a scare factor as no one knows who they are. 
Overall, I believe we should use a mask to hide the antagonist face as that would create a huge enigma within our opening two minutes of our film. Although I may have not made my mind up about what they should wear, I am leaning more towards the casual side so the audience would relate as this could happen to them as the antagonist could be anyone. See 'Antagonist Costume- Final Costume' to see our costume we ended up with.