Conventions of a Psychological thriller

Conventions of a Psychological thriller

Below is a section on each of the four most important sections of a psychological thriller.

Location: They’re typically two different locations for a psychological thriller, which is one in a big city, or set inside a houses. You can also some times find psychological thrillers being set in the country side however this is unlikely because it can be very easily confused with a horror film if it set in the county side. A film which I looked at which follows this convention is paranormal activity which is set in there home.

Lighting: In psychological thrillers you typically find the lighting is dark so then it can create a sense of tension and suspicion. You can also find the use the dark lighting to add shadows, which as to the tension however this does not happen to often as this is the border when it starts to slightly become a horror.

Costumes: The villain other wise now as the antagonist typically wears smart clothing for example a suit and not jeans. The costumes also normally suit the location so you would very unlikely find someone in an urban built up area wearing jeans and a shirt. The villain also typically wears black dark colours to represent mystery and to add suspicion. A example of this would be the main character in American Psycho who goes rounding a suit.

The hero or the protagonist is the opposite to this so he or she does not wear dark colours such as black instead the wear brighter coloured clothing which is or so more visually appealing.

Props: In psychological thrillers you typically find that they use mirrors to show the dark side of a charter and you sometimes have them talking to the mirror which shows a bit of madness. Also you can find in psychological thriller props are very often used to leave clues for the hero to find. This is also really good because it keeps the audiences interested as it keeps them thinking and engaged with the film.

Sound: When looking at psychological thrillers I found that most commonly they use a eerie and tense range of music which is used to build of the tension of the scene However this can also be used to create a shock for the audiences however the music can also be confused with a horror if not carful because both genres commonly use the same style of music because they are used sometime time to set the same scene this is why you need to be careful will using sound because you don’t want your film to be confused with another genre. However not a psychological thriller however Jaws has one of the best now sounds effects as it has its duh....duh...duh.duh sound track which really adds tension to the scene and also tells the audiences something is about to happen.