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SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: SAW HWEI YING

STUDENT ID NO: 0318093

FILMS SELECTED: HORROR MOVIES (ORPHAN, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID

LAST SUMMER)

WORD COUNT: 1478

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 5TH DECEMBER 2014

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Compare and contrast essay

Do you know that different genre movies may focus on different elements which make

them unique and appealing? They can be segmented into action, comedy, historical and so

on. In this essay, I am going to compare two different movies which share the same movie

genre, horror movies. The first movie I have selected to compare is “I know what you did

Last Summer” directed by Jim Gillespie. The movie “Orphan” which is directed by Jaume

Collet-Serra is my another option for doing this compare and contrast essay. “I know what

you did Last Summer” is a horror movie which released in 1997. This movie is about four

high school seniors attempt to cover up a hit-and-run accident and how the victim hit by them

come back and take revenge on them. The movie “Orphan” is released in 2009. This movie is

about a couple who decide to adopt an orphan after the death of their unborn child and what

have happened after they adopt this mysterious nine years old girl.

The first thing that I would like to compare among these two movies is the

psychological problem of the killers. Although both of the murderers in these movies suffer

from psychological disease, the stimulator which causes them to have psychological problem

is totally different. Esther, the protagonist in “Orphan” is suffered from Hypopituitarism, a

disorder that stunted her physical growth. This congenital disease limits her growth and

hence causes her to look like a child due to her height and physical appearance. Her defect

makes her can’t get the love from the man she loves, thus she feels it is unfair and causes her

psychological becomes distorted. The man she first loved is probably the man in the

photograph that she keeps in her secret bible. When she realises that she can't get the man’s

love, she then becomes very frustrated and violent. Her congenital disease is the reason

which stimulates her to become a psychopath. On the other hand, the villain in the horror

movie “I know what you did Last Summer”, Ben Willis is having psychological problem

too, but the stimulator that causes him to become a psychopath is different with Esther, the

killer in the movie “Orphan”. The reason he becomes mentally unstable is because the death

of his daughter, Susie. He can’t accept his daughter died suddenly due to a car accident. After

his daughter’s death, he becomes very depressed and starts to blame everything because he

feels it is unfair why this can happen on his daughter. Ben is completely crazy when he kills

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his daughter’s fiancé, David because he managed to survive in the accident but his daughter

died. The cause that drives him crazy is the trauma of the death of Susie.

Secondly, I would like to compare between these two movies is the serial killers’ killed

target. For the movie “Orphan”, Esther always has a fixed target to murder. She will only kill

the people around her who may harm her and her adopted family except the foster father. But

Ben from the movie “I know what you did Last Summer” does not have a fixed killed target

as he may also kill innocent people. Esther kills Sister Abigail, the head of the orphanage

because she feels that Sister Abigail may ruin her plan of staying with the adopted family

where she can seduce her adoptive father. This is because Sister Abigail finds something is

wrong with Esther as she can’t find any single past data of Esther. Esther worries that Sister

Abigail may find out her hideous secret which she is actually thirty-three years old but

pretends that she is a nine years old girl. She also tries to kill her adoptive brother, Danny

who knows that she has killed Sister Abigail and tries to find the evidence. Her foster father,

John becomes her target after he rejects and yells at Esther when she is trying to seduce him.

But Ben in the movie “I know what you did Last Summer” is totally different because he

does not have a fixed target because he also kills innocent people. This can be proved when

he kills David who is survived and completely innocent in the accident of his daughter. He

also kills Max who passed by when the teenagers hit him but unaware of the incident with no

reason. When he is chasing Helen to kill her, he also kills Helen’s sister who just obeys

Helen’s order to lock the door.

Although both of the villains may show the process they are killing or planning to kill

someone to a specific person, the purpose of showing this to the specific people is not the

same. It can be said that Esther has been forced to bring her adoptive sister along and show

the process of killing people towards her. This is because she needs someone to help her

when she is killing a person. Due to her kid-like physique, although she can kill people by

herself but it is easier if there is another person who is with her and help her. Esther is

choosing Max because Max is deaf and cannot speak so she will not reveal her secrets easily.

In my opinion, she may also enjoy seeing Max’s frightened face. Besides, she may find that it

is good to have a “helper” to help her up and support her when she is doing evil things as she

is insecure since she was born due to her disease, which is unacceptable by most of the

people. On the other hand, Ben always appears around the four teenagers and sometimes

show them the corpse of their dying friend is to threaten them. He is different from Esther

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because Esther will kill her target directly if she wants to. He prefers to torment their mental

before killing his targets as they may worry that they will be the next one to be killed.

Next, I will compare the ending of the movies. For the movie “Orphan”, a big twist

happens when it comes to the ending part. Everything can be explained why a nine years old

girl can plan so well to kill the people around her when her secret is revealed as she is

actually a thirty-three years old woman. And most of the audiences thought that the Coleman

Family may be killed by her especially the mother because Esther wants to replace her. But

the mother, Kate is not killed by Esther and Kate has become the one who save the whole

family because she battles with Esther after knowing her secret. The story ends when they

end the fight and Kate successfully to get out from the pond but Esther can’t. Esther then

pretend to be an innocent child by saying “Please, don't let me die, mommy!” but she actually

holds a knife behind her back and prepare to kill Kate. However, Kate does not trust her

anymore and kick her head hardly and Esther sinks into the pond. The ending of “I know

what you did Last Summer” is an ending with make the audiences curious. When Julie finds

out that the person that they hit is not David but Ben, she decides to tell Ray, one of the four

teenagers. But she misunderstands that Ray is the murderer and runs off. A fisherman

suddenly stops her and put her on his boat. The fisherman is actually the murderer and he is

planning to kill her! Luckily Ray manages to save Julie by chopping down Ben’s arm. One

year later, Julie’s friend passes her a letter, she fears that Ben is coming back again but it is

only a pool party invitation. As she goes to take a shower, there are words on the door which

read: “I still know” and Ben crashes through the glass shower door and the ice pick now

embedded in the stump of his missing arm. No one knows whether he kills Julie. This movie

ends like this because there is a sequel of this movie.

As a conclusion, although both of the movies “Orphan” and “I know what you did Last

Summer” share the same type of movie genre, but there are a lot of differences among them.

Different directors and producers may have different ideas and ways to film the movies

although both of the movies are horror movies. The ideas of the horror movies vary

according to the taste of the audiences and the preferences of the generation as “I know what

you did Last Summer” was released during 1997 and “Orphan” was released in 2009. The

gap of years between these two movies causes the theme are different from each other.

However, it is undeniable that both of the movies are good film as they successfully gained

the popularity of the specific generation when they were released.