History of Psychological Thrillers: Alfred Hitchcock

When researching Psychological Thriller, we believed it would be a good idea to include aspects of Psychological Thrillers from when they were first created. We looked back on the history of them to find out who had the most influence in starting the genre and making it what it is today.

When the genre was first introduced, the main aspects that made it identifiable were the levels of suspense, tension and excitement the genre conveyed in contrast to other film genres.
One of the most influential film directors in the genre was Alfred Hitchcock. (13^th August 1899 – 29^th April 1980)  Hitchcock was an English film director and producer who established many of the techniques we find in the suspense and Psychological Thriller genres today and

was named England's best director after his successful career in silent films and talkies.

Hitchcock’s first thriller was his third silent film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), which was a Jack the Ripper story. The Lodger introduced many themes, which would later run through most of Hitchcock’s work, and the director himself would refer to The Lodger as the first true ‘Hitchcock film’.
Hitchcock continued to direct and produce films through the 30s and 40s, then began to add colour in the 50s with films such as Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954).
After his mass of classics in the 50s, Hitchcock released the shocking and engrossing thriller: Psycho (1960) about an encounter between a secretary, a motel's disturbed owner-manager.  Psycho initially received mixed reviews, but eventually led to overwhelming critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations including best Director for Hitchcock.

It is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and praised as a work of cinematic art by international film critics and film scholars. Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films.

In 1992, the US Library of congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and is now known as the icon for Psychological Thrillers.

The 1970s and 1980s saw Psychological Thrillers becoming vivid, explicit and violent. Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972) was given a R rating as a consequence of an explicit strangulation scene.