Characteristics of Psychological Thrillers

Psychological Thriller Characteristics

The "thriller" is a broad genre of film, having many subgenres. Thrillers are characterised by the moods they give elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of surprise, suspense, excitement and anxiety. Thrillers tend to keep the audience on edge as the plot builds towards the climax.

Literary devices:

• Red Herrings
• Plot twists
• Cliff-hangers
• Sudden changes in Mode Of address (Characters)
• Suspense in plot
• Sense of impending doom

Setting

The setting in a psychological thriller, (e.g. the house) is commonly used to portray and outline a characters life, through where they live, the things they own and what their lifestyle is like
before they meet a series of unfortunate events, which will haunt them psychologically. This shows the great change of the characters' emotional state to the audience, by having their house commonly turned into a mess and making the characters' "place of comfort" unsafe, signifying a change of order.
E.g.(of change of emotional state) could be a person who is very objective to violence, later owning a gun or knife.

The location that the character takes a turn for the worse and the bad events start is often introduced in dark, serene places. For example, a lake or a dark house or in a forest where children used to play. Since setting outlines and foreshadows events which might happen in the future, it is mainly used to build an atmosphere of darkness which would haunt the character, eventually giving the audience a taste of how badly the character is wounded, and how far deep the pain will go.

Camera Angles and Shots

Point of View (POV) Shots- These types of shots help add a sense of reality, often showing the action from the point of view of the victim or the inflictor. The shots make the audience feel involved with the scene, being more emotionally attached and adds to the horror of the horror of the scene because it feels like they are there with the victim.

Zoom - These Shots add to the dramatic effect and creates an element of suspense and fear, as the viewer doesn't know what they will see next. They are often used to zoom into something gory and gruesome. Another use could be to zoom into something that the human probably would have dismissed, like an item of some sort.

(Vertigo Effect/Dolly Zoom)

Tracking Shots - These shots are often used to make out that the character is being followed or watched. When these shots are used with fast straight cut editing, they can also help create panic and  a frantic atmosphere in the case of an attack.