By Sreejith Kamalanayanan The political paranoia prevalent in the 70's, after the Watergate scandal, seeped into the early 80's resulting in Blow Out (1981), a suspense thriller by Brian De Palma. The film is marked by the stylistic influence of Alfred Hitchcock and thematic influence of 1966 film Blow-Up directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Another influence is Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974). Like the paranoia thriller, The Parallax View (1974), Blow Out also features an assassination of a presidential candidate, which forms the focal point of the narrative. Blow Out's protagonist is a sound effects technician named Jack Terry (John Travolta), who works in sleazy B-movies. Terry gets an assignment from his director. He must find a realistic 'scream' sound to be used in a horror movie. Terry sets out into the night recording various sounds near a bridge. On a sudden, a car careen off the road and drown into the creek. Terry c...