1975 Movie Project

Local news anchor Samantha Guilding has two loves in her life, her job and her husband Tom.  In her eyes, life couldn’t be any better than living in the small town of Greensville.  Then, everything changes the day she receives a letter from mysterious fan Larry Wolf.  In the letter, written in blood, are three words… I Love You.  Weeks pass and Samantha’s fear rises as Wolf’s presence and stalker-like ways become more apparent.  Her only solution is to escape.  Samantha convinces Tom to then take a summer-long road trip across the country.  What he doesn’t know won’t kill him right? Wrong.  Through woods, state parks, and unfamiliar towns, Samantha does all she can to keep Tom uninvolved while also running from Wolf and his madness.  The New York Times calls it “the best chase of the ‘70s.”  Will Tom ever find out about Samantha’s stalker?  Will Samantha ever be free from Larry Wolf?  This film goes to new levels of horror and drama.  This is The Great Escape, starring Rachel Roberts and Jack Nicholson.  It is directed by Peter Weir.

I think this movie would work for the '70s because horror movies were really popular back then.  The combination of horror and drama is also fitting because genre hybrid's were increasingly becoming more well-known.  The style of the movie is a sort of ominous and mysterious.  I wanted the audience to really sit at the edge of their seats when watching The Great Escape.  The message of the movie is really about safety.  In my Constitutional Law class, we studied stalkers and the fact that news anchors/famous people have jobs that attract the most stalkers.  I thought it would be interesting to make a movie about a woman who is getting stalked, but the husband doesn't know about it.  It makes the story scarier and has Samantha appearing more vulnerable.

I picked Rachel Roberts as the female lead in this movie because she was known for making horror movies in the '70s.  She also starred in Picnic at Hanging Rock, which was a famous horror film in the 1970s.  I chose Jack Nicholson as the male lead because he was in the movie, The Shining, which was a very successful thriller and horror film.  The two paired together would definitely make a suspenseful film.  Director Peter Weir was perfect for The Great Escape because he was famous for making well-known drama actors into excellent horror actors too.  Universal Studios is going to produce this movie because they are a big movie company and I wanted to make a successful film that sold well in the box office, rather than an artsy independent film.  While the independent films and independent movie companies were big during the '70s, I wanted my movie to sell.  Universal Studios made the movie Jaws also, and therefore I know they would do a good job on my movie.  I wanted to highlight make-up in my movie, and Pierre LaRoche is going to be the costume-make-up artist.  He did all of the costumes for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, another well-known movie in the '70s.

My movie is going to be rated R for violence.  During the '70s, movies were either G or R, and there weren't that many movies in between the two.  I didn't want to be limited in the amount of blood and violence that was shown because I wanted to make the movie as realistic as possible.  Each shooting or stabbing or violent scene that takes place in the movie will be shown on camera.  Movies in the '70s tended to show these elements.  The Great Escape would have been a classic movie in 1975.  I chose this movie because I knew that horror movies always are popular ones and they make a lot of money.  Also, I think it would have been interesting to make a horror movie.  That way, I could have been creative with it and made it my own.