Challenging stereotypes- antagonsist

Before we came up with an initial idea, as a group we decided we to wanted to conform to most stereotypes but also challenge them and horror conventions to make the film unique to appeal to the audience. Therefore we have included a female antagonist in our initial idea as from my female representation research, I found out it is often a male character associated with being the antagonist in successful horror films, and if women are the antagonist, they are usually portrayed sexually and deceiving:

Here are some of the few psychological horror films with a female antagonist we could consider taking inspiration from:

May (2002)- This film is about a lonely woman who has had a traumatized childhood and tries to connect with people around her.

Female antagonist- May
This female antagonist tricks the audience because at the beginning, the audience sympathise with her as she is trying to get to know people, and they don't suspect her as the antagonist. She also comes across to the audience as a very likable and friendly person which also lets the audience relate to her, but when they find out the truth about her, that makes it scary for the audience as it seems very realistic so makes them think it could happen in real life.

Here at the beginning May looks innocent.- this is where the
 audience sympathize with her and her smile represents her as
friendly to trick the audience

Now the audience see her real character- torturing people.
This shocks and frightens the audience as they didn't expect this.
This adds to the realism of the characters personality

Friday the 13th (1980)- A group of camp organisers are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant (the female antagonist) while trying to reopen a summer camp which was the site of a child's drowning years before

Antagonist- Pamela Voorhees
She is the former camp cook and the mother of the boy who drowned in the lake at the summer camp. She murders two counselors, which ends up with the camp closing. 20 years later, it reopens but, it is  too much for her to handle so she proceeds to murder more counselors, using hatchets and other sharp implements.

What have I learnt and how will I use this research?

From this research I have learnt that as a group, we don't have to portray the female antagonist as an antagonist at the beginning of the trailer if we want to build suspense. We could represent her as innocent and sweet. This is because it will trick the audience and create a sense of realism which adds to the horror factor so therefore will clearly show the genre to meet one of the purposes of a trailer. 

Furthermore, as I am doing costume research for our trailer, if I was to consider taking inspiration from both of these female antagonists, I will look at their costumes in depth as from these pictures, May looks like a sex appeal which is how we want our antagonist to be portrayed at the very beginning but towards the middle and end we may want her looking casual and psychotic, so therefore I will consider looking at Pamela Voorhees for this costume inspiration.