Psychological thrillers

In film

What Is a psychological thriller? • In terms of classification, the category is a subgenre of the broader ranging

thriller category, with similarities to Gothic and detective fiction in the sense of sometimes having a "dissolving sense of reality", moral ambiguity, and complex and tortured relationships between obsessive and pathological characters. It emphasizes the abnormal psychological states of its characters. Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of and overlap with mystery, drama, action, slasher and horror (particularly psychological horror). They are usually books or films.

• Psychological thrillers tend to change ones perspective of reality and make them question what they know to be deemed as socially true. Peter Hutchings states that varied films that have been labelled as psychological thrillers, usually refers to "narratives with domesticated settings in which action is suppressed and where thrills are provided instead via investigations of the psychologies of the principal characters”. These tend to leave the viewer emotionally invested in the film due to how the film Is able to have a psychological reaction.

Typical trends have emerged within the psychological thriller sub-genre. However many critics have recommended that to fully grasp the film, sometimes it needs a 2nd or 3rd viewing due to the complexity of the narrative. Characters within psychological thrillers also tend to battle their own perceptions, minds, what is reality, themselves and what Is life's purpose. • Reality• Perception• Mind• Existence/Purpose• Identity• Death

Typical themes

Literary devices and techniques• Plot twist – Films such as Psycho and The Skeleton Key have advertised the fact that they

contain plot twists and asked audiences to refrain from revealing spoilers. • Unreliable narrator – Andrew Taylor identifies the unreliable narrator as a common literary

device used in psychological thrillers and traces it back to Edgar Allan Poe's influence on the genre.• Macguffin – Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the concept of the MacGuffin, a goal or item that

helps to move the plot. The MacGuffin is frequently only vaguely defined, and it can be used to increase suspense.• Amnesia – is a common plot device used to explore these questions; what is real, who they

are, and what life's purpose is( which are common themes within psychological thrillers)

Recommended psychological thrillers to delve your minds into..

• One hour photo, Misery, Psycho, Shutter island, Silence of the lambs, Memento, Seven and black swan.

These are all films which allow you question your basic knowledge or society and on an individual psychological level.