CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TRILLERS

Plot Twists

Psychological thrillers are stories where the main character is challenged on a mental and emotional level rather than a physical level. The story tension usually comes from two character going head to head in a “game” which requires high level mental thinking from not only the characters but the audience as well to keep up. The story of a psychological thriller is not always what you may think and often contains a twist at the end of the plot that no one was expecting. Plot twists often happen near the end of the movie when you think everything has been resolved new information often arises.

Death & Blood

Death is a common trait within psychological thrillers. Death often happens thorough the entirety of the movie with the antagonist killing someone or many people then threatening to kill more or do more harm. The deaths are normally not normal deaths they will have some twisted way to how they are done. For example the psychological thriller movie se7en. Each death was done by a psychopath who followed the theme of 7 deadly sins with each kill

Blood is partnered with death. Blood gives off

Reality and Fantasy

Since psychological thrillers are about the mind. Most psychological thrillers have the trait where the main character is lost or confused on what is reality and what is fantasy. They may try to spend the entirety of the story trying to find out the “truth” aka the reality. This can be seen in the movie Black Swan.

Identity

The main character may be trying to find out who they are or who stole their identity. This often links in with reality and fantasy as they may have been living their lives thinking they are someone whom they are not which comes to realisation once equilibrium balance is tipped.

Low lighting

Low lighting is a recurring code and convention of psychological thrillers. Low lighting usually create shadowed figures which in total add to the mystery of a character building tension and striking fear into not only the audience but possibly the main character.

RICK ALTMAN THEORY

SEMANTIC SYNTACTIC PRAGMATIC

Conventions of the genre that help communicate to the audience. For example in a Crime genre you expect to see; murder, detectives, offices, murder weapon. General mise en scène to tell the audience the genre through traditional codes and conventions.

What the audience expect to happen within that genre. For example a romance you expect two opposites to hate each other throughout the beginning of the movie then too express love for each other with one party messing up and causing them too split before reuniting dramatically at the end of the movie.

In furthering his own research Rick Altman said that we should be pragmatic in our genres. This means sticking to a genre rather than trying to add a bit of every genre into one film.