Research into Genre by Chris Osbyrne

Genre

What is Genre?

Genre is a style or category of art, music, literature, or in this case, film. Genres are very important because they allow you to find your target audience and meet with them on a familiar level they all understand.

What Genre is Our Film?

Our film is a hybrid of genres but I think that it is most strongly categorised as a psychological thriller. 

What are Psychological Thrillers?

Psychological thrillers, unlike regular thrillers, focus on the mind and how the film can manipulate your thoughts and predictions as to what will happen in the film. Examples of psychological thrillers could be Se7en (1995), Memento (2000), Inception (2010), Shutter Island (2010), Psycho (1960) and Silence of the Lambs (1991). They can often be mistaken for horror films because they have the same 'shock value' as a horror whether it is bloody violence, coarse language or supernatural elements interlaced into the narratives.

Iconography of Psychological Thrillers:

The Police Department or a large authoritarian characters - In this case, Se7en's main characters are police detectives working on a case involving a murderer who kills people based on the seven deadly sins. However, our film will not have any police departments. This is not because we don't want to work it into the story, but we don't think we will be able to fit it into the time-lenth of the film.

Dream Sequences - In this case, Teddy, from Scorsese's Shutter Island, is dreaming about his dead wife as she crumbles to ash in his arms, due to her being burned in a house fire. A scene in our script is very much inspired by this scene because our protagonist reunites with his partner on their wedding day but she vanishes when he turns to look at her; instead of crumbling to ashes, there will simply only be her wedding dress on the floor in a dramatic tilt down shot.

Psychopaths/Sociopaths - Psychopaths, such as the above picture of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, are very common in Psychological Thrillers because their insanity can confuse and manipulate characters and audiences alike. However, our film does not have a psychopathic character but definitely has some mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, perhaps even bipolar disorder.

Strong and Bloody Violence - Violence is a key part in psychological thrillers because they add to the shock value of the film itself and demonstrates the harshness and cruelty of the world the characters are set in. This image, from Park Chan-Wook's 2003 film Oldboy, is a perfect example of the horror that can emit from a thriller with its very graphic suicide headshot that follows. Our group will try to use make-up to create a bloodied and gruesome face, what with her supposedly returning from the dead.

The 'Reveal Shot' - Many psychological thrillers end with a sequence that can completely flip the entire narrative of the film on its self and have a whole new meaning. This shot, from American Psycho which was adapted from Bret Easton-Ellis' novel of the same name, is a perfect example of how this can happen. Before this, we find out that none of the murders which Patrick had been committing were real at all, they were merely fantasies that he had sketched in a notebook. And here, he is coming to grips with the reality of his own existence in life, with the line ''All of this has meant nothing'' as he realises it was all imaginary. Our film will have a 'Reveal Shot' as such when we discover that the strange being in our protagonists house in actually his wife, revealed through the ring she wears on her finger.

Symbolism or Foreshadowing - Having symbolism or foreshadowing is great way of making a psychological thriller almost feel inevitable and the director is attempting to try and convey the message throughout the story before it is even revealed. This image from the picture above is from Ridley Scott's 1982 classic Blade Runner and conveys Deckard picking up and studying an origami unicorn that was left outside his apartment. The unicorn appeared earlier in the film as a dream of Deckard's which only he could have known that he dreamt of. However, the fact that there is an origami unicorn outside his house suggests that someone knew that he dreamt of it because they were able to see Deckard's dreams. This, therefore, reveals that Deckard must be a 'replicant' and it is most likely Gaff that wanted to tell him because throughout the film he was making origami animals.