Storylines in Psychological Thrillers

Joe Sheldon

Pacing and Plot

– Our film will borrow many aspects of the psychological thriller, following a main character throughout. This trope of the thriller genre is only effective when the film is fast paced and plot-driven, focusing on action.

– In a typical psychological film, the pacing must be fast to keep the audience engaged in the movie. The emotions run high and constant obstacles or crimes happen in order to impede or aid the central character, whether they be villainous or good-natured.

– The major crimes are committed at various points within the movie, usually with one side working to prevent the major catastrophe.

– Unlike the more conventional crime thriller, a psychological thriller usually involves the audience knowing more than the protagonist, through either exposition or the character’s bad mental state.

Character Development

– In a regular thriller, character development is usually sidelined for action. However, a psychological thriller tends to place greater emphasis on character development than its counterpart.

– The emotional and mental wellbeing of the primary character is always impaired in some way. In our premise, the main character is deluded and has a fixation on killing his two friends from college later in life.

– The evil acts by a character drive the story forward and alter their behavior. The audience usually knows the history of the character and the identity of them early on within the film, as it adds more emphasis upon later events.

Opposing Sides Structure

– The main character should be someone that the audience can recognise and their motives should be somewhat understandable, even if the viewers cannot empathise with them.

– As a result of this, their should always be an opposite side of the story to try and prevent the protagonist from getting their wish.

– In our idea and in many famous films, the opposite side is the police trying to stop the murders. However, often the character that is the prospective victim of a crime is forming the opposing side.

– Characters often try to out-wit each other, winning in a psychological thriller is rarely done purely by brute force or speed.

Examples

– One of the defining psychological thriller/horror films, Psycho (Dir. Hitchcock, 1960), followed and formulated many of the typical aspects of the psychological storyline.

– The pacing is fast and the crimes happen frequently. The audience has some information on the identity of the protagonist without the main victims knowing.

– The fear and neurological state of the central characters are explored in far greater detail than in a regular thriller.

– The film operates with opposing sides of the victim and murderer, with the victims and protagonist attempting to escape the murders.