Paul's Movie Idea

Paul's Movie Idea: The Climbing Waves

Genre: Psychological horror

Characters: Chris

Setting: Chris' house, local lake, streets around Chris' house

Rising Waves follows the life of Chris Mullen (a 17 year old college student) who has symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and an extreme, life altering fear of water. Chris is a perturbed young man who was regularly beaten and bullied, by his father, when he was younger. Chris at the age of 14 moved in with his grandmother, but two years later she died and subsequently Chris lives alone.

Chris' negative experiences with water cause him to associate fear and danger with the substance. This develops into a phobia of the substance which causes Chris to become housebound, (due to his fear of rain) unhygienic (he refuses to do any bodily cleansing) and suicidal (when Chris refrains from drinking any liquid at all). The movie finishes with Chris ending his life by drinking a bottle of bleach.

The movie predominantly focuses on the depression and loneliness of Chris and follows him on his ever darkening journey to suicide.

The movie begins with an establishing shot of a peaceful lake, the camera then cuts to a closer medium long shot of the lake with the exaggerated noise of surrounding wildlife to express how tranquil the lake is. The serenity is the interrupted by the splashing noise of water and heavy breathing made by Chris. The camera pans left while zooming in to reveal a boy who has emerged from the lake and is crawling on the ground trying to escape something. The camera cuts to extreme close up of Chris and then cuts to a high angled body shot of Chris from behind his back. While this is happening eerie music plays in the background which becomes louder and faster. The next shots are fast paced and of Chris running out of the park. While Chris is running he passes an injured man on the floor who is bloodied and asking for help however Chris being startled carries on running. The next scenes are on dimly lit, deserted streets and Chris is trying to get a signal on his phone, he eventually does and dials 999. The dialogue in this scene is of the operator, "Hello 999 what is your emergency?" and of Chris who says desperately, "Please, please, just listen they're after me again, you've got to..." and then the phone cuts dead the screen fades to black and white noise fills the sound. When screen is faded out the white noise dramatically cuts and there is Chris' voice over which says, "My name is Chris Witten, 17, and this is how I died. The final scene begins with the text "Day 1" on screen, significantly brighter colours and an overhead of Chris in his bedroom waking up for college when his alarm goes off.