Psychological Thrillers

What are psychological thrillers?
Psychological thriller is a fictional thriller story which emphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states.^[1] In terms of classification, the category is a subgenre of the broader ranging thriller category,^[1] with similarities to Gothic and detective fiction in the sense of sometimes having a "dissolving sense of reality", moral ambiguity, and complex and tortured relationships between obsessive and pathological characters.^[2] Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of mystery, drama, action, and horror, particularly psychological horror. They are usually books or films. - Quoted from Wiki.

Films-Pulp Fiction;The silence of the lambs;The shining;Mr Brooks;Inception;White noise;se7en;Vacany;Memento;American Psycho;Fatal Attraction

Actors/Actresses-Uma Thurman;Bruce Payne;Danny Trejo;John Travolta;Wesley Snipes;Jessica Biel;Jennifer Jason Leigh;Christian Bale;Dustin Hoffman

Elements-

Action and psychological aspects both are used to add to the suspense.

With a psychological thriller the conflict is through the mind, skills, and wit of main characters, reversing the more normal thriller “plot over character” expectations ie. a psychological thriller reader needs to understand the character, character can be slightly more important than plot.

Psychological thrillers often deal with common themes such as death, reality, perception, identity, existence or purpose, and one or two of these themes should be wound through the film.

Target audience-

• The target audience of many psychological thrillers are 18+

• This is because they include a lot of violence and some psychological issues which can be disturbing for many younger viewers

• There are usually warnings on the back of the DVD cover which states why it is rated as it is e.g. contains extreme violence or sexual scenes