Psychological thrillers typically feature characters such as criminals, stalkers, assassins, victims on the run, prison inmates, and menaced women. These characters often have dark pasts or are psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops, escaped convicts, or people in twisted relationships. Common settings for psychological thrillers include large houses, schools, cities, hospitals, and other locations that create realism for audiences by allowing them to imagine themselves in similar situations to those faced by characters.

1. Characteristics of
Psychological Thrillers
Characters and setting/locations.

2. Characters
Typical characters consist of:
q convicts
q criminals
q stalkers
q assassins
q innocent victims - on the run
q prison inmates
q menaced women - example sleeping with
the enemy.

q Characters with dark pasts
q psychotic individuals
q terrorists
q cops or police
q escaped convicts
q people in a twisted relationship
q fugitives
q private eyes
q drifters

3. Settings/ locations
 Some of the main settings you will see in psychological are usually big
houses, schools, cities, hospitals and more. These settings create realism for the
target audience which helps them relate to the film as they could potentially live
or have been in one of the settings. By using these settings, it increases the
audiences as they are then able to picture themselves in these positions.
 An example would be in Donnie Darko