Idea for the villain

One of the most iconic elements of any horror movie are the main antagonists of the film as they will appear in most of the films advertisement with the main characters taking a backseat until the films release. Because of this my group needs to make sure that the villain in are film is unique and can be easily recognised when we create the film trailer. After thinking about ideas for the villain I have come up with several elements that I will explain in detail. The elements I feel are important to create a successful villain are:

Costume: What do they do look like?, does their design have any hidden meanings?
Voice: What do they sound like?, Has their voice been edited so it sounds different?
Origin: Where does the villain come from?, will it be referred to in the trailer?

Costume

Patrick Bateman
(His clothing makes him
look like a regular person)

The costume of the horror antagonist is arguably the most important thing about them as it allows audiences to easily distinguish them among all of the other characters. While there are some antagonists who dress very similar to the main protagonists such as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (2000) who wears a business suit throughout the film which shocks the other characters and the audience when they find out he is the one killing them off. However, as we are creating a horror action film we are going to be taking more inspiration from horror films where the antagonist does stand out making him look like a much bigger threat which is commonly seen in the Slasher genre as the villains are meant to be portrayed as ruthless killers. 

Leatherface
(wearing his skin mask
and wielding his iconic
chainsaw)

The first ideas I got for the antagonists costume was them having their identity hidden by a mask to create an ominous vibe around the character as we don't know anything about them not even what they look like. The most Iconic example of a masked villain is definitely Jason Voorhees with his hockey mask being one of the most iconic items in horror movie history even though he originally wore a sack over his head in his debut in Friday the 13th part II (1981). However, their are other well none horror movie villains who wear masks with much more sinister origins around them such as Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) who's face is hidden under a mask made out of the faces of the victims he has killed. This is done to make audiences feel intimidated by him whenever he is on screen as his mask represents how much of a threat he truly is.

Demon eye contact lenses

On the other hand, if their was a scenario where we couldn't use a mask for our villain we would most likely instead result to using makeup to make the villain look more threatening. There are many ways that we could use makeup to change the villains face so I will look at the most likely ones that my group could use. First off, contact lenses could be used to change the eye colours of the villain, this could be to make them seem more intimidating or hint at their origins. For example in many modern horror films supernatural/demonic characters usually have contact lenses to make their eyes completely black so that they look hollow and empty. However, before that red eye contact lenses where used a lot to show demonic characters as the colour red was and is still associated with blood and death.

Fake teeth
(Gives someone a beast like
appearance)  

Another type of makeup that could be used to change a characters appearance are fake teeth. These are used to make a characters teeth look bigger and sharper so they look more animalistic. This portrays them as being more brutal and violent killers as their teeth associates them with beasts. These are most commonly used in films where vampires are the main antagonists as they are usually portrayed having fang like teeth resembling that of a bats (an animal vampires are commonly associated with). They may also be used in Werewolf films either during a transformation sequence or so that the audience can distinguish who is and who isn't a werewolf.

Voice

Micheal Myers

Another key element about a horror films villain is the what they sound like as their voices will sound much different compared to the rest of the characters in the film as it should sound threatening and intimidating. However the problem is while my group has created films in the past and we have managed to create intimidating sounding voices they sounded more like they would come from a criminal mastermind instead of a malicious killer. But there are ways that my group can work around this one idea is that the villain doesn't talk remaining silent throughout the film this would make the villain look much more intimidating as they would be as it convey them as being ruthless showing no remorse only their blank expression as they slice through their victims. This is a common convention in the horror genre with the most iconic example again being Jason Voorhees but another silent horror villain similar to Jason is Micheal Myers from Halloween (1978). However a way that we could give a villain a voice is make them speak through growls and snarls like a monster instead of a villain this would be useful as it would be easy to create the noises and they can easily be edited to sound more beast like however this would limit us to what the villain could be as it would have to be something like a werewolf or a demon meaning we would also have to make the villain look more monstrous which may not be possible none of my group has any skills in that type of makeup. An example of a monster villain in a horror film are the Xenomorphs from Alien (1979) who speak using growls and loud shrieks to scare the audiences. The last thing that we could do to create our villains voice is record are the dialogue and then edit it to make it sound more evil when they are speaking. Unlike my other group members I have experience in editing voices so this will be a very viable choice and I believe that I could definitely create an intimidating voice. This technique has been used in many horror films for example Robert Englund the man who played Freddy Krueger would say his lines quickly and they would be slowed down so it sounds deeper but still realistic.

The video above shows Robert Englund talking about how the Freddy voice was created in the sound studio.

Origins 

The final thing that I'll be talking is the origins behind the villain. While this may not be the most important thing for a film trailer it is at least briefly explained in the trailer. At this moment I have a several ideas for what the origins could be. The first is that they are a mysterious killer who appeared out of know where but there are really old urban legends about this killer from long ago. This could easily be implemented into our film trailer as it could start with a radio broadcast of someone talking about the recent killings while cutting to the villain and as the trailer progresses the characters find out the old legends. Another idea that I had was that the villain is bound to a certain area (house, place of death, etc) and some reckless teenagers seeking thrills decide spend the night their believing that the rumours of it being haunted are just that however when a mysterious killer starts killing them off they must fight to survive. This could also be easily implemented into a film trailer as it would start with the teenagers arriving at the place talking about joking about the rumours it would then skip to night time where someone would be killed where a montage would happen showing the characters being scarred/attacked by the villain.