Film concepts

All concepts of films have familiar aspects to them and unique qualities to them; we can see this through trailers of the movie. For example, in seeing the trailer for “Hard Candy” it holds the concept of a man and a teenage girl meeting over the internet. As a mentally disturbed character he leads her to his house, however we find that he has done this before with other girls of a similar age and we assume that he has killed them because of evidence that he’s kept in a room in his house. Therefore, we feel danger for her because the information shown conveys he is a paedophile. There are similarities with “Hard Candy” and “Leon,” a film where a male assassin manipulates a young girl due to her vulnerability because her family died. She is seeking a comforting relationship, whereas he attempts to murder her. Another similarity is “Taken,” a film where two teenage girls meet a man a few years older then him who charms them to come to a party, instead he kidnaps the two. Contrastingly, there are unique qualities to this film. There are only two characters and most of the film takes place at one location which expresses a claustrophobic tone. Also, there is role reversal in the concept- a young girl is surprisingly powerful in comparison to an older, perverted man. We know this as she takes control of the situation and fights against him.