Film / Thriller (2018)

"Thriller" is a 2018 horror/slasher movie co-written and directed by Dallas Jackson in his cinematic debut.

The story is set in South Central Los Angeles, focusing on a group of friends, Lisa, Ty, Derrick, Andre, Kim, Eddie, and Tiffany, who as kids, played a cruel prank (despite the protests of Lisa) on a mentally disabled boy named Chauncey Page, luring him into an abandoned house and ganging up on him wearing skull masks; this leads to Chauncey accidentally pushing one of the kids' friends, Amani, off a railing, killing her. Out of fear, they blame everything on Chauncey leading him to get arrested and sent to juvie...

Four years later, the kids are all grown up and have mostly forgotten what happened that day, as they are currently dealing with their own issues, such as relationship problems, hopes of a better future out of the 'hood, and the homecoming prom. But Chauncey's grown up as well: into a huge, quiet, pissed-off young man, still wearing his infamous black hoodie, freshly released from prison.

The kids are unnerved by Chauncey's return, especially Lisa, but attempt to ignore it and go on with their lives. Soon though, people start dying and Lisa and her friends keep seeing Chauncey stalking them, leading them to fear that their past is coming back to haunt them. In the worst possible way...

The film was shown in the LA Film Festival on September 23, 2018 and was released on April 14, 2019 on Netflix.

RZA composed the movie's soundtrack, and also worked as executive producer and portrayed Principal Hurd in the film.

It is in no way related to the famous Michael Jackson album Thriller, but has a Shout-Out to it at the film's end.

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Thriller provides examples of:

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• Alpha Bitch: Gina.
• Ax-Crazy: Chauncey, but not really, he just has anger issues; Derrick's the one with the fucking problems, killing his friends and shit.
• Accidental Murder: Chauncey accidentally kills Amani, one of the skull-masked children who prank him by pushing her off a railing.
• Ascended Fangirl: In-Universe: Kim manages to seduce a rapper named Unique to be her prom date and even loses her virginity to him.
• Aside Glance: At the end, Chauncey smokes a cigarette then smirks at the audiance after spying on Derrick in the hospital.
• Batter Up!: Ronnie owns a baseball bat as a weapon and whips it out twice to use it against Chauncey, only Chauncey (really Derrick) takes it from him and beats him to death with it.
• Berserk Button: Don't call Chauncey a killer.
• Big Bad: Chauncey, at first. Turns out Derrick's the real killer.
• Big Damn Heroes: Detective Johnson stops Chauncey after he appears at the prom and attempts to chase down and kill Ty. Then, Chauncey of all people comes to the rescue, when Derrick (the real killer, who has been impersonating the real Chauncey) attempts to kill Lisa and Ty with Johnson's gun.
• Brick Joke: Chauncey buys a pack of cigarettes from a convenience store; he smokes one at the end of the movie after seeing Derrick lose his shit inside the hospital through a window.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the very end of the movie Chauncey looks at the camera and smirks at the audience.
• Car Fu: Derrick is thrown into the path of a car during his fight with Chauncey; he survives and ends up hospitalized.
• Chekhov's Gun: Gina's gun is used on Lisa. But it's really a water gun filled with cherry Kool-Aid.
• Confronting Your Imposter: Chauncey battles Derrick, who has been impersonating him during his killing spree. He ultimately wins by throwing Derrick into the path of a car.
• Bookends: The film both starts off and begins with a crying mother pleading to the police that her young son is a good boy as the police do their work. The first time is when Chauncey is arrested, then at the end when the cops go into Derrick's room despite the pleas of his mother and find his creepy murder shrine in his closet.
• Death of a Child: Amani's death kicks off the conflict of the story.
• Establishing Character Moment: A young Chauncey is introduced buying a hot dog for a homeless man and walking past two kids jumping rope, despite the two laughing at him for being a "retard" when he could've walloped them. And while he kills Amani (by accident) and yells "I'm gonna get you!" to the kids as he's hauled away, he feels bad about killing Amani and when he's released, he goes home and becomes a shut-in, never making good on his threat. However, he comes out of his house to stop the killer, Derrick, who was impersonating as him.
• Evil Wears Black: Chauncey is all dressed in black: black hoodie, black jeans, black mask, black leather gloves, black soul. Subverted when it's revealed that the killer's Derrick.The ''real'' Chauncey is a nice guy, despite his past and his ill temperament. So nice, he ends up saving two of the kids who were part of the prank that incarcerated him.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Derrick has a good relationship with his mother, which makes it more heartbreaking when she begs the police not to search his room when he's arrested.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Chauncey only kills those involved in the accident and anyone who pissed him off. Despite brutally beating a local drug dealer's thugs, he doesn't kill them. He also knocks out Principal Hurd with a chair and leaves him alone as he goes after Ty (he leaves Gina alone after she trips).
  • Chauncey confronts the drug dealer who bothered him earlier by attacking his men and threatening him with his own gun; it appears he only wanted to scare him as he ends up putting the gun on the ground and lets him go. However, when the dealer calls him a "bitch", Chauncey ends up grabbing him and gutting him with a knife.
• The Faceless: Chauncey's black hoodie covers nearly his whole face during all of his scenes as an adult, however his mouth is briefly seen when he's hiding from Detective Johnson; Derrick goes the extra mile to use a full, see-through mask to hide his face.
• Foreshadowing: There are several hints that reveal that Derrick is the real killer:
  • When Derrick opens his closet a small part of one of the skull masks the kids wore is seen, which is revealed to be part of Derrick's murder shrine.
  • Upon seeing Chauncey, Derrick has what appears to be a smirk on his face when he videotapes Chauncey, as if he just got an idea to murder a bunch of people and make it look like it was someone else.
  • Perhaps the most obvious hint is when Derrick is confronted over his grades (he was an A-student and went to a D-student); he is apathetic about his failing grades, saying that most black people end up dying anyway, mostly by at the hands of a member of their own race. This type of behavior and attitude is reminiscent of real-life school shooters, or anyone in general, before they go on a rampage.
  • When the killer discovers that his prom date Kim ditched him for the rapper Unique, he is asked if he is okay. He says no, he isn't okay and gives the same psychotic look he shows during The Reveal when he is unmasked. Unique and Kim die shortly afterwards.
  • Chauncey murders Eazy and Unique, which doesn't make sense since Chauncey didn't respond to the former's insults to him and never encountered the latter person. Then, you realize the only other person to have any beef with the two people is Derrick, who was antagonized by Eazy when he tried to take Derrick's headphones and would logically be pissed at Unique for taking Kim, the girl he's crushing on.
  • Near the end of the film, close-ups of Chauncey reveal him to be wearing a mask. But if Chauncey's killing people, yet everyone knows who he is, why would he be wearing a mask in the first place?
  • If you study Chauncey's gait, you'd see that he has a limp or a shuffling walk. The killer on the other hand walks normally.
• Good All Along: By the end, it turns out that Chauncey wasn't the murderer after all. In fact, he saves Ty and Lisa from the real killer, Derrick.
• If I Can't Have You…: The killer's motivation for offing Kim and Unique. She was his prom date but ditched him for the rapper.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: This is Chauncey by all intents and purposes. He is introduced buying a hotdog for a homeless man. When he is released from prison for serving time for a bum rap, he still doesn't avenge the injustice committed against him. He simply becomes a shut-in and doesn't make good on his promise to go after his peers and contemporaries that wronged him.
• Limited Wardrobe: Chauncey rarely wears anything other than his hoodie, making it real easy for someone to frame him for murder...
• Malevolent Masked Men: Chauncey wears a black, eyeless spandex mask during his murders. Turns out he was wearing it to hide the fact that he isn't Chauncey...
• Neck Snap: Eddie and Unique are killed this way by Derrick disguised as Chauncey.
• Red Herring:
  • Chauncey is made to look the killer. He is anti-social with a psycho stare, and visibly angry all the time. There is even a scene where he chokes his drunk mother, but doesn't kill her. Turns out he was once again being framed like in the past by Derrick who is the real killer.
  • There is also Kim who seems to have a split personality where she speaks in the voice of her twin sister that died, shades of Ms. Voorhees from Friday the 13th (1980), but she is killed along with rap star Unique after the two had sex.
• Sex Signals Death: Kim ditches Derrick at prom to have sex with rap star Unique. Then they both are murdered by the killer shortly afterwards... who turns out to be Derrick.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Lisa and her friends prank Chauncey, a tall, mentally disabled boy, by tricking him into going in a dark, rundown building and chasing him while wearing skull masks. It's no suprise that one of the kids ends up killed.
    • Then, they proceed to blame their friend's death on Chauncey out of fear, just like most kids would do in that situation.
  • When Lisa learns of Chauncey's first murder, she goes to report him to the police. But the detective there, Raymond Johnson, refuses to detain a young man who's just been released from prison just because of his past mistakes and on circumstantial evidence, like the victim being slain near Chauncey's residence; he does later start watching Chauncey just in case he is killing people.
  • Mental illness occurs in "The Hood" too, in areas where it's less likely to be detected, let alone treated. However, the circumstances of the hood can't allow for perceived weakness, such as Kim's split personality disorder or Derrick's murderous tendencies, known of by his mother who didn't stop it which makes it harder for mental illness to be treated for in African Americans.
  • Ty is a football player, and while he's in the locker room during a big game, he encounters Chauncey and runs away from him. However, he ends up spraining his ankle due to the sudden running he had to do along with all the previous exercise before. He maintains this injury for the rest of the film.
• Villainous Breakdown: Derrick loses any composure he had after getting captured.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: When we first see adult Chauncey without his hoodie, he not wearing a shirt, which reveals his muscles and all the scars he accumulated from his time in prison.