Psychological thriller visual essay

1. Visual Essay
Psychological thriller

2. Difference to normal thrillers
• The Psycho thriller is closer to the audience.
• Deep focus on the stage of mind of character
• It takes place in more personal locations and
situations of life
• E.g. The new neighbour is strange

3. Themes
• Reality
• Perception
• Mind
• Existence and purpose
• Identity
• Death

4. Mise-en-scene
• Shadows and low level lighting: they are used to add tension
in a film and they represent sometimes inner darkness of a
character.
• Props: Mirrors are often used in Psycho-thrillers to show the
second/dark side of a person.
• Costumes: The costumes are mostly smart casual what
underlines that psycho thrillers often take place in peoples life
and they are closer to reality.
• Locations: mostly modern and urban settings e.g. a hotel

5. Sound
• The sound is used to create shock in the
audience or to create tension.
• But the music is also more personal/emotive
than in normal thrillers.
• You also hear more screams than in normal
thrillers.

6. Camera movement
• The camera movement is fast and visualizes
panic, and fear.
• More emotive in these situations than slower
movement.

7. Editing
• Montage & obtrusive is used to highlight
emotions and feelings and to show tension.
• Flashbacks shows what happened previously
and give the audience a better impression of
the character. It also shows why a person acts
in the way she does and explains a characters
behaviour.
• The using of shadows is quite often used and
comes best with a black and white scene.

8. Narrative
1. Equilibrium (the normal life of a character)
2. Disruption of equilibrium (something unusual happens)
3. Recognition of the disruption (someone see what happens)
4. Attempt to repair damage (Someone fix the problem)
5. New Equilibrium (everything should be okay now)