Research into final film idea: Similar storylines/characters

Psychological thriller

Similar film plots

The Silence of the Lambs - A serial killer known as Buffalo Bill is murdering women, and even worse, leaving them partially skinned. FBI guru Jack Crawford enlists trainee Clarice Starling to go to Hannibal Lecter, an infamous serial killer and cannibal himself, in an attempt to get information on Buffalo Bill's identity. Therein, Hannibal and Clarice form a strange "quid pro qou" relationship, in which he offers information on her case in exchange for personal information about herself. In time he leads her closer and closer to the way she catches the serial killer, who has, at this time, kidnapped a senator's daughter, sending the urgency of the case skyrocketing. While in custody to offer information to the senator herself, Hannibal kills two security guards and escapes ingeniously by wearing one of the dead men's faces. Clarice finally realizes that Buffalo Bill is skinning the murdered women in order to make himself a woman suit out of real women, and accidently goes to his house while attempting to get information on his identity. She gets caught in the basement with him in the dark after discovering the senator's daughter alive and shoots and kills him. After the ordeal, she is promoted to FBI agent. She then gets a call from Hannibal Lecter, who is abroad and about to make another kill: His nemesis, the doctor at the prison where he was held for eight years.

This film is similar to our film idea as both films involve the main character having some kind of psychological problem. Even though the character with the problems in this film is male, both characters break from captivity and kill lots of innocent people. 

Martyrs - Lucie (Jessie Pham), who has been missing for over a year, is found hysterical by the side of the road. She leads police to the derelict slaughterhouse where evidence suggests she was held captive. Although there is no evidence of sexual abuse, Lucie bears the signs of repeated injury and neglect. Traumatized and uncommunicative, Lucie is unable to tell the authorities anything further about her time in captivity or the people who kept her there. Over time, Lucie makes friends with Anna (Erika Scott), another girl in the youth home where she lives. Anna looks after Lucie and eventually gains her trust. Lucie appears to be haunted by something or someone - a shadowy, rasping female figure (Isabelle Chasse) who apparently mutilates Lucie. After one such episode, Lucie makes Anna promise not to tell anyone about the creature haunting Lucie. Meanwhile, with the help of the doctor (Tony Robinow), the police even questions Anna, so as to know whether Lucie has communicated something to her. Anna says that Lucie cannot usually remeber anything about her captivity period. Lucie and Anna then go on to seek revenge on those who kidnapped her and kill lots of people on the way.

This film is similar to our idea as both involve two teenagers with a psychological problem. Both characters have gained these problems due to seeing/experiencing disturbing things as a child. In Martyrs, she gains her problems from being abused as a child and the character in my film gains her problems from seeing her sister get murdered. Both characters problems also lead them to do the same thing - to go and kill lots of innocent people as they both seek revenge and want justice for what has happened.

The Butterfly Effect - In the year 1998, Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who suffered severe sexual abuse and traumas as a boy (played by Logan Lerman) and a teenager (played by John Patrick Amedori), blacks out frequently, often at moments of high stress. While entertaining a girl in his dorm room, he finds that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he travels back in time, and he is able to "redo" parts of his past, thereby causing the blackouts he experienced as a child. There are consequences to his choices, however, that then propagate back to his present life: his alternate futures vary from college student, to prisoner, to amputee. His efforts are driven by the desire to undo the most unpleasant events of his childhood which coincide with his mysterious blackouts, including saving his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh (Amy Smart) from being molested by her father (Eric Stoltz) and tormented by her sadistic brother (William Lee Scott). The actions he takes, and those he enables others to take during his blackouts, change the timeline in the new future where he awakes. As he continues to do this he realizes that even though his intentions are good his actions have unforeseen consequences. Moreover, the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternate timelines causes him brain damage and severe nosebleeds. Ultimately, he decides that his attempts to alter the past end up only harming those he cares about. But Evan realizes that the main cause of everyone's suffering in all the different timelines is himself. At the conclusion of the film, Evan purposely travels back in time one final time to the first day he met Kayleigh. By scaring her away, he makes sure that she is never a part of his life, and thus finally succeeds in saving her life. He then destroys all of his journals and memories so that he is not ever tempted again to make any more changes. The film ends eight years in the future with Evan leaving an office building in Manhattan and passing Kayleigh on a crowded sidewalk. They alternately pause and turn after spotting and passing each other. After a moment of hesitation, Evan lets her walk away without speaking to her.

This film is similar to my film idea as both characters experience flashbacks. At the start of my film, the main character has many flashbacks as she is thinking back to the past. In 'The Butterfly Effect' flashbacks are shown through out the film. We could take ideas from this film on how the flashbacks were edited to get ideas on how the flashbacks are going to be portrayed in our film. Evan Treborn also suffers from psychological stress which causes his flashbacks and the flashbacks caused in our film will also be caused due to remembrance of what Lucinda has been through.

Similar film characters

Lucie (Martyrs) - Lucie is similar to our main character Lucinda as they are both round about a similar age and both have psychological problems. Lucie gained her problems as she was kidnapped and abused as a child and Lucinda gained hers as she saw her sister get murdered. Both characters go out and kill lots of innocent people out of anger. As our character is similar to Lucie, we can watch her behavior and characteristics to make her come across creepy and dark. 

Lucie

Esther (Orphan) - Esther is a woman who could be defined as a violent and deluded psychopath but is perceived to be a child. She is highly intelligent, highly manipulative, superficially charming when needed, and lacks remorse. She can easily induce fear, empathy, and even admiration (as we see during her first interaction with the Colemans) when it suits her ambitions.
Esther and Lucinda are similar as they are both children with psychological problems. They both seek revenge for an incident what has happened in their lives which leads both of them to go and murder innocent people. Lucinda could have a similar behavior as Esther due to them both having a need for revenge.

Esther