Psychological thrillers focus on the unstable mental states of characters and incorporate elements of mystery, drama, action and horror. The settings can be everyday places that emphasize realism and psychological torment. Main characters include victims in troubled relationships, police officers trying to help victims, and psychotic individuals with dual personalities who are often the killers. Narratives typically involve someone unaware of their dual nature hurting others due to past trauma before realizing their identity and ending up dead or institutionalized. Iconography includes confined spaces, low lighting, elements of surprise and draining sounds to unsettle audiences. Cinematography uses techniques like low angles, close-ups and zooms to convey emotions and imply danger.

1. GENRE
RESEARCH
MILLIE LONGFORD

2. Psychological Thriller
Psychological thriller is a thriller story which emphasizes the unstable psychological states of its
Characters. Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of or overlap with mystery, drama,
action and horror.
A psychological thriller is a mix of a thriller with some parts of horror within it, however playing on
the psychological theme showing a twist.
A thriller has some parts of horror, with an exciting plot, typically involving crime. And a
psychological is where they show in depth the characters mentality and state of mind.
The drama film shows us human beings at their best, their worst, and everything in-between and can
lead up to a big reveal.

3. Setting
• The setting of a psychological
thriller can be anywhere and everywhere
because the genre focuses on the psychological
torment of everyday people.
• Hide and seek setting is in a
house emphasizing on the reality of the film in
an everyday place.
• Shutter island is set in an mental asylum
instantly shows a sense of danger because these
people are mentally insane.

4. Characters
The victim being the person who is in trouble or gets killed,
who we as an audience tend to like and feel empathy for when
something happens to them.
The police officer who comes in to help save the victim and
work against the villain, who also ends up getting killed.
The people/person in a troubled relationship, who we also feel
empathy for when we can see them struggle in their
relationship, who usually wither ends up coming out alive and
leaving the relationship or dying because of the person they
was with
The psychotic individual is the main character and we can see
two sides to their persona they give of to people and who we
really are, this person usually ends up killing other people, and
either ends up dead themselves or in a mental asylum.

5. Narrative
The main storyline we see in a psychological
thriller is someone who is unaware he has two
sides to him, because of his past traumatic
events. They then end up hurting people close to
them with no idea that they are responsible.
Usually ends with them finding out who they are
and ending up dead or in a mental asylum.
An example is split as he has 23 personalities
and doesn’t realise and thinks their his friends,
at the end he reveals his 24th personality and
finally realising who he is.

6. Iconography
Psychological thrillers all have in common that they
show confined spaces and low key lighting both
showing the darkness and gloominess of the space,
adding to the affect that its an
unsettling environment. They also all have in
common the element of surprise and something is
coming for them. And the running water and the
drip diegetic sound adding to suspense, and can
create the idea of draining of life, and although
water is an everyday item, they are able to put the
audience on edge by adding it in there.
An example where they display this is phone booth
(2002) where they show the theme of confined
spaces.

7. Style
• The camerawork of as psychological thriller are low angles are often
used in thrillers to convey the superiority of certain characters. Close up
shots are also used to convey the characters emotions such as fear. The
foreground of a shot can imply alto to the audience for example if we
see a dead body in the foreground with someone standing over it, this
will imply they are responsible for the death. Zooming in will focus in
a specific detail, to make the audience aware of the danger.
• Low key lighting is used in a thriller to show to danger, and since we
associate danger with dark this is commonly used when danger appears.
• Editing in a psychological thriller is used to make the shots very short
and quick between each shot, showing that there is action and it is
intense as the audience are constantly seeing each shot to keep them
intrigued.
• The sound style that is used as very sharp and short sounds such as
a drip of water, or a door close loudly, this helps to grab the audience as
they begin to wonder what is that noise.
• An example