Psychological thriller

Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre. Also, occasionally this genre will border into the also wide-ranging horror genre.

Generally, thrillers focus on plot over character, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.

The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.

Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or physical torsions of the characters at play.

Deconstruction of the definition

Psychological – Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature.

Thriller – A genre of fiction that attempts to "thrill" its audience by placing characters at great risk. This constant unease throughout the story makes the narrative suspenseful to the reader by creating a tense atmosphere.

Psychological + Thriller – By combining these two terms, the definition changes to a narrative that makes the characters exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

Literary devices and techniques

Stream of consciousness - a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes. In psychological thrillers, the narrative tries to manifest the character's psyche through word usage, descriptions, or visuals.

First-person narrative - a literary technique in which the story is narrated by one or more of the characters, who explicitly refers to him or herself in the first person, that is, "I". This direct involvement that the characters have with the story in turn makes the reader more involved with the characters themselves, and thus able to understand the mechanics of the characters' minds. This technique is often paired with the concept of the unreliable narrator.

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 reader 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.

Themes

Many psychological thrillers have emerged over the past years, all in various media (film, literature, radio, etc). Despite these very different forms of representation, general trends have appeared throughout the narratives. Some of these consistent themes include:

Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative.

Perception – A person's own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative (see Unreliable narrator).

Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.

Existence/Purpose - The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.

Identity - The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.

Death - The cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.

Examples

Screenwriters and directors of the genre

Brad Anderson – Works effectively in the psychological horror genre. He is the director of The Machinist and Session 9.

Dario Argento – Italian director considered the master of giallo. He often create mysteries that are very psychological in nature, with the past of characters influencing their present actions, as in 4 mosche di velluto grigio, Tenebrae, Trauma and La sindrome di Stendhal.

Darren Aronofsky – Director of harsh paranoid thrillers such as Pi, Requiem for a Dream and upcoming psychological thriller Black Swan.

Park Chanwook - Korean director who significantly explored the genre in his "vengeance trilogy" (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance).

David Cronenberg – Canadian director who focuses on the psychological horrors of our minds. His storylines often make issues of the mind explicit, as in The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, Dead Ringers and Spider.

Brian De Palma – Infuses eroticism with the thriller genre. Often uses the motifs of doubling and splitting in the characters minds, as in Sisters, Obsession, Dressed to Kill, Body Double and Raising Cain.

David Fincher – Dark and ominous thrillers that focus on the psychology of men, as in Se7en and Fight Club.

Mary Harron Canadian director who directed American Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock – The master of suspense, Hitchcock often applied Freudian concepts to his thrillers, as in Rebecca, Spellbound, Vertigo, Psycho, Marnie and Rear Window.

Richard Kelly – Director who examined many of the themes illustrated above in the film Donnie Darko.

Stanley Kubrick - His films are characterized by a formal visual style and attention to detail – often combining elements of surrealism and expressionism that give the viewers a feeling of discomfort, such as in 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut and A Clockwork Orange.

David Lynch – Surrealistic director whose mysteries are usually puzzles of the mind. Both the audience and the characters themselves must figure out what is real and what is not, especially in Inland Empire, Lost Highway, Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive.

Christopher Nolan – British-American director whose narrative structures often reflect the mental construction of the characters, as in The Dark Knight, Memento, Following, The Prestige and Inception

Roman Polanski – Polish director whose thrillers focus on the alienation and isolation of the characters, as in Repulsion and Le Locataire.

Martin Scorsese American director who directed Shutter Island.

M. Night Shyamalan - Indian-American director well-known for making psychological thrillers which often have a twist ending in them. Successfully executed the psychological thriller in The Sixth Sense, Signs and Unbreakable.

Video games

Alan Wake - An Xbox 360 video game created by Remedy contains a main plot line that follows Author Alan Wake, who is suffering a two-year writer's block and vacations in a town called Bright Falls with his wife. Once there, his wife goes missing and an evil presence stalks the town and its residents. Alan must overcome this force, but at the same time notice what is real and what is in his head. Stephen King, X-files, Lost and Twin Peaks were listed as influences for making the game.
Dead Space - A Psychological Horror game created by EA (Electronic Arts) and released in the U.S. in 2008 on the PS3 and 360. The game starts with main protagonist Issac Clarke watching a video of his girlfriend while traveling to the ship she is on to do some repairs. In just a minute, you are thrown into a dangerous situation with your ship crashing onboard the USG Ishimura, being attacked by creatures and having the burden of saving the human race atop his shoulders.

Examples in film

Examples in literature

Patricia Highsmith - Highsmith's novels usually focus on troubled young men who are either sociopathic or emotionally unstable; throughout each story the protagonist is somehow drawn into a murky murder case, and must contend with persistent policemen and suspicious friends. Her most famous character is the charming con man and serial murderer Tom Ripley who, over the course of five books, successfully kills nine people.

Desmond Cory - Cory's popular novels have been made into successful films (The Mark of the Phoenix, Deadfall) and a television series (Circe Complex). Cory explored many different aspects of the psychological thriller, featuring a wide spectrum of characters that ranged from the jewel-thief to the terrorist.

Rod Glenn - Glenn's novel, Sinema: The Northumberland Massacre explores the idea that a seemingly well-adjusted individual with an unremarkable upbringing can make a sane decision to commit murder. Sinema features the unusually likeable and charasmatic character of Hannibal Whitman as the central anti-hero.

Jonathan Kellerman - Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels often deal with various matters of criminal psychology.

Robert Banfelder - Banfelder has written a series of ten novels about serial murder and has given expert opinion to many published interviews about serial killings. Although Robert Banfelder's writings are categorized as fiction, his extensive research and case work with serial killings he is often interviewed when serial or pattern murders remain unsolved or the frequencies increase.

Lynn Tincher - Tincher has written a series of novels about psychological manipulation and serial murder.

Melanie Wells - Unlike her contemporaries, Wells has taken a different approach to the genre by adding supernatural elements. Her novels, such as When The Day of Evil Comes, The Soul Hunter and My Soul to Keep, feature the psychological mind games of Peter Terry - a demon who seeks to steal his victim's peace of mind and hope.

Mary Higgins Clark - Clark's novels typically focus on a successful woman caught up in the diaboloical games of men, who are usually either psychotic or sexually perverse. The crimes in her stories often involve children in some way, and occasionally deal with child telepathy.

Nicci French - The pseudonym of husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Their novels often revolve around a young female protagonist who is either targeted by or is suspected of being a psychopathic killer. The stories are quite unique in that they focus just as much, if not more so, on the victims of crime rather than the actual criminals.

Stephen King - Although his books Carrie, Cycle of the Werewolf, Thinner and others are considered as horror novels, his book often focus on the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s), their origins, backgrounds for character and certain activities.

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game, though usually identified as a science fiction novel, gets more into the life of a child, rather than focusing upon the technology and means of the future.

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