Costume.

'The Last Exorcism' is a 2010 American found footage horror film directed and edited by Daniel Stamm. I decided to watch this film to gain some inspiration and costume ideas for mine and Cassies main antagonist.
For our main protagonist, instead of challenging costume conventions of a typical Horror, me and Cassie decided to study how female antagonists are portrayed in Horror films, and we decided that the best costume idea, was the classic white gown, covered with blood and dirt. The white gown is used on several antagonists in films such as the last exorcism  the ring and the grudge. Therefore due to it's frequent use in horror films, the white gown is associated, by the audience, with dark, female antagonists. The reason why it's such a popular item of costume is because the usual connotations

 of the colour white, is innocence,purity and sinlessness, and it helps contrast against both the dark stains of blood and dirt, and the characters horrifying facial appearance. It powerfully subverted the viewers expectations when it was first introduced into horror films, as the iconography of the white gown connotes to the audience a harmless child, when in fact, it shocked the audience more to find out that it was actually the antagonists costume. Making the antagonist look slightly approachable by cleverly using aesthetics is one of the greatest achievements in horror film history. Initially my main thoughts on the antagonists' were to use dark coloured and rag-like clothing, and to contrast against this, use light coloured clothing on the protagonist. Now, after further studying classic horror conventions, i now may have to reverse that idea. Cassie and I were considering using a pastille blue colour for the protagonists dress as we feel it has a virtuous and harmless nature it can also represent sky and a sense of freedom which is soon to be taken away from her by the antagonist when she is trapped and murdered.

As you can see here, the protagonist, unaware of the antagonists presence, is dressed in a simple gown, and it contrasts against the antagonists attire. In this screenshot, the main character and potential victim of the assailant, is a naive and angelic figure, and this will make the audience feel much more sympathetic towards the character.

After this research, Me and Cassie have decided to change the costume, in order to match these horror conventions and therefore, we will be meeting the expectations the viewer will have, and they will then recognize that our short film is a horror.