Antler: Psychological Thrillers

Psychological Thrillers

According to my research, the term ‘Psychological Thriller’ is one of the sub-genres of thriller (the rest are mystery thrillers and crime thrillers). Thrillers merge mostly with the action genre as there is a strong chase element, but in regard to a psychological thriller, it deals with aspects relating to the mind or the mental state (rather than physical – action). A common narrative would be two people playing dangerous mind games or one or more unknown sources slowly deteriorating the mental state of one character (usually the main character). The main themes deal with – reality, perception, mind, existence/purpose, identity and death (credit to Wikipedia).

Most characters used are

1.) The main character, usually in an unstable mental state of mind – suffering from amnesia; suffering from PTSD; suffering from schizophrenia; suffering from multiple-personality disorders; breakdowns. They often have to deal with conflicts of their mind – their upsetting past, crimes they have committed and often suppress; crimes they have witnessed and suppress; dealing and resolving with a restless memory; going on a journey, looking for unanswered questions from the past

2.) Someone by their side, someone who acts as a support (emotionally or physically) and aids them throughout the film. Usually is there as a medical professional; detective; someone similar to the main character, but less affected; a friend or a family member.

3.) The antagonist(s), main source of their suffering, caused their suffering a long way before the main narrative of the film has begun. A single person or a large group that may have traumatised the main character (and several others) in some way and are going to certain lengths to silence them.

4.) A back-up, mainly authoritative figures – the police. These are used so the main character’s actions can be justified and prevents them from being imprisoned.

Techniques:

1) Stream of consciousness – a technique which seeks to describe an individual's point of view by giving the equivalent of the character's thought processes. In psychological thriller films, the narrative usually tries to manifest the character's psyche through voiceover or point of view filming.

2) Unreliable narrator - only showing us part of the person's story so we do not totally trust what we are seeing - we only see the kidnapping through the eyes of a small girl

3) Back-story – the history behind the situation extant at the start of the main story. This deepens the psychological aspect of the story since the viewer is able to more fully understand the character; more specifically, what the character's motivations are and how his past has shaped his current cognitive perceptions - our opening is the backdtory explaining why the sister is a disturbed individual when she grows up.