Audience research of psychological thrillers.

2. SOCIAL CLASS
In most psychological thrillers, there are mostly working class characters
who earn high amounts of money and live in a wealthy neighborhood.
This can lead to a lot of conflict between relationships that often lead
them deteriorating. A lot of causes for this are mainly money which
shows how the upper class are easily rivaled against each other. Other
psychological horrors, likewise to our film do not create conflict over
money but an unexplainable event which could have been triggered by
a mysterious character or a spirit. This is what makes our film different
from others.
Lower class people are often seen as the evil protagonists in most
psychological thrillers because of their low status in society. Their
appearance are always associated with dirty, unhygienic conditions
which highlights how they are less significant than upper class
characters.

3. ETHNICITY
One group that are often represented in psychological thrillers are ethnic
groups and race, this varies with Afro-Cariribeans, Asians and white
Americans. Asians are typically represented as hard working, intelligent
and determined. They are represented in this way by the use of camera
shots such as tight frame; this helps the character seem more
influential and significant. Afro-Cariribean is a common ethnicity that is
represented, however they are usually represented in a negative way.
They are normally associated with violence and crime. E.g. In “The
Purge” the black man was being conveyed as a “traitor” and an outsider
from society. This is carried out in psychological thrillers which is the
most common genre to inflict violence in their films. White people
usually take the leading role in psychological thrillers but they normally
act in a way that the audience can sense they are vulnerable to show
that danger is coming their way. We inverted this common convention
as one of our actors who are black took the leading role between the
two police investigators.