As we have decided on the genre of 'Psychological Thriller' for our opening, we decided to look at openings of other Psychological Thrillers to understand how the codes and conventions work together to convey what the genre is.
We looked at the film 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' to get a better understanding of how these codes and conventions can work together to produce a Psychological Thriller. The openings includes many typical aspects found in Psychological Thrillers, for example, it begins with what apears to be a desterted house with a single open window who's curtains are being blown about. The lighting inside the house is minimal, with only the light from the window allowing us to see what is going on which conveys an eerie, creepy atmosphere. The scene then jumps to a serge of people tainted red as they are covered in some sort of raw, bloodied meat. This connotes some of the common themes we found in our research, such as death and maybe murder. The redness of the meat also fits in with the typical iconography we have found, as it connoted blood and the devil, and evilness.
We also studied the film 'Donnie Darko' which is the story about a schizophrenic boy who has come off his medication. Donnie Darko is the stereotypical 'mentally incapeable' character of a psychological thriller, and also has an imaginary friend who is able to influence him to do certain things. The film overall is a great example of a psychological thriller, as it features many of the stereotypical codes and conventions which we found are common in the genre.
Another opening which fits the typical codes and conventions is 'American Psycho' a film about Patrick Bateman, a man who by day works on Wall Street, and by night descends into madness, as he experiments with fear and violence. In the beginning of the opening, we are introduced to an incredibly white and sterile environment, and then to the character himself, who completes a sort of workout, then goes on to wash himself. We can gather from this that this man may be quite OCD about things being clean and tidy, and after he places a susbstance onto his face, which he then proceeds to peel off, we start to understand that there may be something wrong with this man; he may have some sort of mental disorder.
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| Examples of various Psychological Thrillers |
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