RESEARCH ON GENRE CONVENTIONS
The psychological thriller is a sub-genre of thriller that explores the psychology of its characters, who are often unstable. What makes a thriller psychological is that the biggest questions revolve around the minds and behaviour
These are identifiable features in the style and content of films that are shared across the industry that make them prototypical of their genre and easily identifiable to an audience. Our chosen genre is psychological thriller which is a sub-genre of thriller and has conventions that cross with the horror and mystery genres.
The psychological thriller genre has some overlap with but is distinct from the psychological horror genre, which incorporates more elements of terror. Psychological thrillers generally stay away from elements of science fiction, focusing on events that could take place in real life.
Although psychological thrillers vary widely in their storylines, some common elements include:
- Close-up shots shows more emotion, because emotion comes from the actors eyes, the closer the camera is to them, the more emotion is received. To add to the dramatic tension strange angles are used, Hitchcock who´s a director of psychological thrillers did this for example. He said, "a conversation may be quite trivial, but often the eyes will reveal what a person thinks or needs"
- Camera movements are an important factor in a psychological thriller as quick camera movements are often used to build tension and panic within the scene which then makes the audience feel the same emotions as the character
- Shadows and lowkey lighting
- Most commonly the music is quite eerie and tense and is used to build tension in a scene or to shock the audience. For example, the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film "Psycho" (1960). Then, sudden breaks and silences from this eerie and tense music are often used to build up the 'fear factor'. So, this technique is also used to help create jump scares within a scene.
- Obtrusive and montage editing
- These editing techniques are used frequently in psychological thrillers to highlight the feelings and emotions of suspense and tension within a scene and it's mostly used in important scenes.
