There is often a fine line drawn between thriller, horror, crime mystery, and other kind of specific genres in the vast world of film. One of the most fascinating categories under this umbrella is the psychological thriller. So what exactly is it? After all, if you look up on google "best psychological thrillers of all time", a vast array of options are bound to turn up: stemming from SAW and Insidious, to The Machinist and Shutter Island. For all sakes and purposes, our production company is focusing on "what it must be like to live a reality that is parallel but not entirely rooted in the one the rest of us reside in." This unique take on the world inside a psychological thriller, offered from a psychologist's perspective, argues that this genre often dramatizes and almost glamourizes mental disorders...providing representations that are "more creepy than psychologically relevant." The complexities of these conditions are cheaply conveyed through these films and according to the author of the article, "If there is one thing they actually do well, it is heightening paranoia of film audiences. They leave people trying to determine the 'signs' of sociopaths and psychopaths even though neither term is actually used clinically by psychologists." (referring to psychological thrillers.) So yes, maybe "The Black Swan" is not the most realistic depiction of a ballerina gone mental, but audiences don't want reality in this genre....They want dramatization. Psychological thrillers pray on the imaginations of audiences, who get wrapped up inside the director's fabricated twisted world and whirled away in madness.
Soooo here's where we are with the story right now. The film surrounds a girl that confesses to a murder that never even occurred. Yet the events seem as real as can be to the confused quasi-criminal. What exactly is going on?...
we don't entirely know yet...but we are working on it!
Here's what we can be sure of. The best psychological thrillers either take audiences inside the mind of the 'insane', or perhaps give the trope a different kind of outlook.
Also, "smart audiences appear to be intrigued by complex storylines that when thoroughly plausible in real life heightens their sense of fear. " These kinds of films usually wind up to be the most unsettling.
So the concept may very well be overdone...but what if we flip normal conventions on their axes? Instead of a 'crazy' person so overwhelmed with the horror of their crime that they block it from their memory, what if the protagonist is so insane that a horrific murder that never occurred appears to her as reality?
Hmmmmmmmm.
Until next time!!
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