"Joyride" - Caroline Robertson

This film has iconography such as a weapon, (axe) , blood, and dark lighting. These put together could be taken to be a horror, but the soundtrack to the film has a very fast pace, and this puts the film into the thriller genre as opposed to horror. Another aspect of the film which is typical of thriller genre films are the police characters. There is a clear protagonist in the man who is kidnapped, and you are made aware of this early on by the fact that he gets out of the car to help the man in the road, showing that he is kind and brave ( two typical protagonist traits.) Likewise, the antagonists are made clear by their dialogue and presentation with the axe, emphasised by the fact it is set in a dark and raining atmosphere when they appear.

There is no narration other than dialogue, and the audience is made to see the experience through the protagonists point of view, this is emphasised by the scene where he is trapped in the boot and you can hear the diagetic sound of the women screaming, but you cannot see what is happening to her, you can only see what he can see - the inside of the car. I think that this both builds tension and gets you to empathise with the characters fear more, as you can clearly see his facial expression changing as he listens to her screaming. He gets more afraid, which is what I think the audience is meant to do as well. This has been exaggerated by the close ups of his face, cutting to point of view shots of the car, cutting back to the close up of his face. This gives us a clear indication of his emotions, at the same time keeping the fast pace of the film and keeping the audience on their toes wanting to know whats happening/is going to happen.

The soundtrack sets the scene to the film immediately, with its fast pace and low tone giving the film a dark feel with exciting pace, giving the audience reason to anticipate something. The film plays on the theme of crime and violence, the fact that a man could end up kidnapped when on his way home from work insinuates that there is crime going on every day, to normal people. The film is riddled with enigma as the audience are questioning the characters, who are they? where are they from? What were the kidnappers origional intentions? Again, this keeps the audience wanting to watch more.

The film uses typical short film format, with a clear beggining, middle and end. Although the majority of the film contains so much enigma, the end gives the film some form of closure, knowing that the antagonists are looking at getting their punishment and that the antagonist has died, ironically from what the film began with, ( the electricity post) giving the film a nice twist, leaving the audience shocked and probably dissapointed at how it ends. The whole way the film has been setting up the audience to sympathise and want him to survive through his whole ordeal. The fact that he lives through the ordeal, but died from his own line of work which he had left to fix until morning is frustrating for the audience to watch, as by this point in the film they are probably assuming that he will live and that the film will have a positive ending. I like the twist, as it leaves people thinking about the film after and gives it a whole new twist.

The film represents the working class in its main characters, I think this has probably been done to appeal to a wider audience as people can sympathise and relate to the characters, (especially the electrician) more. The electrician is represented as a hard working, intelligent man, reflected when he is in the boot of the car and manages to turn the break light off and sets the alarm off. It suggests that he may have a family as he is on his way somewhere, this is again something which gives him sympathetic representation.