Genre research

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.'


This is similar to the genre of our film as we have a character, the mother, who plays games with others minds to distract them away from the fact that she has mental problems and committed a crime.

Genre research

In Fridays lesson we were discussing what genre we would, as a class, like to make our 2 minute film opening. Most of the class were thinking of a horror/thriller as we thought this would be a fun, more straight forward genre which you can do a lot with. Other people were thinking of doing a comedy which I think would be the hardest genre to do as we would have to put a lot more thought and careful planning into it and it may end up not being funny at all.
I would like to do a thriller movie opening as I think we can create a lot of suspense and it would be a fun, interesting genre to explore. When i researched this genre this is what i found from the website http://www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html:

"Thriller and Suspense Films are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features.
If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that rentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy."

Examples of some thriller films are:
Pulp Fiction, The Shining, Phone Booth, Psycho and Memento.