Individual Research into Genre

Chosen Subgenre: Psychological Horror/Thriller


A psychological thriller is usually a fictional story that emphasis the psychology of its character and their unstable emotional states to build tension and to cause trauma. They usually have element of mystery, drama, horror etc. The fear created is usually within the mind of the character and it has an impact on the audience.

Similar Films with this genre: 

• The Ring
• The Shining
• Black Swan
• The Sixth Sense
• Gothika
• The Changeling
• Butterfly Effect

Similar Storylines:

• Trainspotting
• Pulp Fiction
• Thirteen
• The Conjuring

Characters:
Usually in a psychological/horror film, the main characters are usually younger people who have just hit adulthood. They are usually suffering from their own personal problems: maybe alcoholism, anxiety, being lonely etc. The characters emotions/fears are played with in the film, to the extent where they can go insane. Either the character finds out the problem and over comes it or they are defeated. 

Mise-en-scene:
Setting: The location of most of these films are usually in a small, lonely suburbian area with no sense of community, most of the people in the area are oblivious to what is happening or they make out they don't know. The setting usually is dark and has an eerie vibe to it. Everyone in the community is usually not aware what is happening and carrying their lives on as usual.  
Lighting: Most of the lighting in these typical genres are dark and mostly grey scale, they usually give a dark atmosphere so it looks eerier and more mysterious however they have to have a normal/daylight for the parts where everything is normal and nobody knows whats happening.  

Make-up: Usually the protagonist are pale-faced and have dark eyes or they wear minimal make-up to show how weak and tired they actually are. 
Costume: Usually the characters are wearing everyday uniforms or clothes because it's meant to be psychological rather than obvious to the world. More dark colours are warn by the main characters. 
Props: Most films of this genre use props which are used in everyday life as they are thrown about or have a meaning. 




Iconography:
This genre uses a lot of iconography in different ways. In most films of this genre, dark corners and dead ends are used, this lets the audiences own imagination run wild as you can't really see whats happening so they have to imagine themselves also usually they can run away no further. In horrors which are mostly gory, a lot of weapons are used such as: knifes, guns, axes, chainsaws etc and you instantly, as the audience, think murder and death. In the films, a lot of blood can be used to give the feel or danger, harm or murder. It has a lot of interpretations. Depending on the film itself, different techniques and strategies are used to link to psychological horrors. For example, mirrors might be used which scares the audience for it's own personal experience, it usually represents the characters inner self. This is done in Black Swan. Moreover, innocent children are after used when it is a family based setting who are the ones who usually spot whats going on first but have no idea.