Psychological Thriller Research Articles

Murder and motherhood: transgressing femininity in Regarde la mer

ABSTRACT François Ozon’s Regarde la mer/See the Sea uses the generic codes of a psychological thriller in order to portray femininity in a state of flux. Although Ozon is one of the most established contemporary French auteurs, this film is often overlooked in studies of his work. This article explores Regarde la mer as one of Ozon’s many contributions to a specific genre. The ‘psychological thriller’ relies heavily on suspense and ambiguity in order to function, and much of the film’s ambiguities are built around a sense of ambivalent sexual tension. In addition to the analysis of genre, this article approaches this ambivalent sexual tension from a queer perspective. Many normative configurations of gender are transgressed in the film, and the article identifies how this is conveyed in its expressive visual style. Furthermore, the film interrogates traditional female roles, such as ‘wife’ or ‘mother’. As a result, Regarde la mer draws on the aforementioned generic codes in order to subvert normative discourses of femininity.

Don’t Worry Darling: The anxious question of what women want after #MeToo?

This article considers ‘post-MeToo’ media culture through a close reading of Olivia Wilde’s 2022 film Don’t Worry Darling by drawing primarily on Jacques Lacan’s approach to anxiety. #MeToo indexed, in its marking of ‘#’, in its saying, in its hashing out, that the ‘me’ of feminist subjectivity and the ‘too’ of a collective form of that subjectivity always bears a marked remainder. There is something which the symbolic will always miss; so too do fantasies of a united feminism, under the signifier ‘#MeToo’ lack. Some years after the #MeToo moment, the movement which it appeared to promise wanes. Revanchist patriarchy surges forth with eruption of #TradWives on TikTok, and the exhaustion of #MeToo in the wake of clapbacks and callouts of ‘cancel culture’. This paper returns to the original site where #MeToo irrupted – Hollywood – through a consideration of Don’t Worry Darling. Branded a ‘feminist psychological thriller in the wake of #MeToo’ by director Olivia Wilde, the film presents a trad wife dreamworld governed by a Jordan Peterson like guru. Drawing on Lacan, I argue that Don’t Worry Darling, in its spectacular box office failure, surrounding sexual scandal, and in the narrative itself, works as an index of feminist, but also patriarchal, anxieties after #MeToo.

“Sexy but frightening”: Femme worldbuilding and feminist revenge

Women-led revenge films are often lauded for feminist narratives and cathartic reversals of heteropatriarchal hegemony. However, many texts reify femmephobic systems of gender and power by construing violence and revenge as masculine, thus requiring heroines to adopt masculine tactics and weapons. Promising Young Woman (2020) breaks with genre conventions by constructing a world and protagonist that exemplify femme norms, values, and covert ways of operating. Drawing on queer and femme theoretical frameworks, I situate Promising Young Woman in a femme enclave of psychological thriller, positing it as an example of femme worldbuilding that explores how femme subjects assert power over their narratives.

YOZUVCHI SHAXSIYATINING PSIXOLOGIK TRILLER ASAR USLUBIYATIDA NAMOYON BO‘LISH XUSUSIYATLARI (TOMAS HARRIS TETRALOGIYASI MISOLIDA)

The article explores the intricate relationship between the author’s identity and the unique narrative style of psychological thrillers, focusing on Harris’s iconic Hannibal Lecter series comprising “Red Dragon”, “The Silence of the Lambs”, “Hannibal”, and “Hannibal Rising”.

A Systemic Functional Linguistic Analysis of Mood and Modality in One of Metcalfe’s Novels

The study examined Gemma Metcalfe's novel A Gripping Psychological Thriller: A Mother's Sacrifice from a systemic functional linguistic approach. The interpersonal metafunction, used in this study, can aid in drawing a picture of the mother's sacrifice experience and revealing the appropriate lexicogrammatical choices to spotlight that experience. It is accomplished by detecting Mood and Modality systems in extracts from the novel representing that experience. It aims to show how mother's sacrifice is realised linguistically through the interpersonal metafunction according to Halliday and Matthiessen's framework. The study adopts a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach for analysis. The researchers discovered that the interpersonal metafunction through Mood and Modality systems divulges the experience of the mother's sacrifice as an experience of choice, and the most appropriate representative of this experience is the systemic functional linguistic approach. Moreover, the empolyment of the Mood system shows that all kinds of Mood give the full portrait of mother's sacrifice. However, not all Moods are equally effective. Further, the Modality system mirrors how the characters in the novel use various kinds of Modality with different scales, degrees, and modal orientations in order to express their attitudes, (dis) beliefs, fears, doubts, obligations, probabilities, necessities, possibilities, (un)certainties, willing, abilities, and even usualities.

Chinese Female Writer Zhang Yueran and Fictional Features of Her Prose

In this paper, the author analyzes the fiction of contemporary Chinese female writer Zhang Yueran (b. 1982). As a radiant and influential representative of the post-1980s generation in contemporary Chinese literature, Zhang Yueran is considered to be one of most talented and strong young writers. Post-1980s Chinese writers are known by depiction of young people’s lives in big cities with elements of magical realism, however, unlike the most Post-1980s Chinese writers, Zhang Yueran focuses more on the characters’ subjectivity and their pursuit of love (parental and romantic). Her complex characters thrive for love and happiness, but also suffer from loneliness and lack of parental attention. Zhang Yueran’s writing is visceral and almost poetic in its use of metaphor. The development of Zhang Yueran’s prose can be divided two key periods. Her early works are aesthetic psychological thrillers about unhealthy love, inspired by classical fairytales that end with a character’s death and self-destruction: while the language is beautiful and almost poetic, but there is a lack of narrative depth. In her second era, Zhang Yueran returns to realism and successfully combines style and deep narrative by contrasting scenes of cruelty and mercy. At the moment her latest novel “Cocoon” embodies all significant fictional features from the perspective of both style and narrative.

Somewhere Only We Go

The process of writing the screenplay, Somewhere Only We Go, occurred over eight months for actress and creative Claire Kendall Taetz. From deeply researching the writing process and watching her characters come to life as she typed out her script, Taetz formed a complex psychological thriller that will have audiences questioning the layers of reality and consciousness. Logline for film: “Nearing high school graduation, Ashlynn MacGregor and her friends venture out on the town. A tragic event occurs, and Ashlynn is presented with a new reality...and the question is not can she accept it, but how she will accept it. Somewhere she goes takes us on a journey where we all go, through the eyes of one frightened but dauntless woman on the brink of insanity.

Rage: Stephen King’s Strange Fiction becomes a Grim Reality

In this study, a critical analysis of one of Stephen King’s most well-known novels, Rage, is taken into consideration. A psychological thriller is what you will find in Rage. There is a school shooting depicted in the novel that is based on actual incidents that took place in secondary schools throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. The psychology of school children and the conditions in which they find themselves are also discussed in this essay. The plot revolves around a troubled high school student who struggles with issues of authority and who commits murder against one of his teachers while also holding the majority of his classmates captive. While Charlie Decker is in the midst of a protracted, stressful, and exhausting warm evening, he discusses what led him to this dramatic series of acts. At the same time, he is examining the identities of his peers and asking each of them to defend their own lives. Surprisingly, this book is linked to a number of incidents involving shootings at top universities. There was one such incident that resulted in the deaths of three classmates and the injuries of five more. A teenager named Michael Carneal’s closet serves as the setting for the tale. In this particular instance, Rage was responsible for the sixth high school shooting. As a result, the purpose of this research is to investigate the causes and consequences of the novel as well as the shootings that occurred in real life that are linked to it.

The Plight of Women in Paula Hawkins the Girl on the Train

The existing idea were assertively exploring some dissimilar feature which makes a problem of women. The Girl on the Train (2015) was written by Paula Hawkins, were observes around Domestic Violence, Plight of Women, Betrayal and Drug Abuse which derives women suppression. The purpose in the Plight of Women is to indicate the woman struggles by the men controlling in the society. We will confusion out Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train has analyzed the unstable woman’s they were portrayed with problematic life to survive in this society. Paula Hawkins was a psychological thriller writer, through this novel she illustrates the three-woman characters such as Rachel Watson, Megan Hipwell and Anna Watson who perform the major role. In this novel these three women’s life were running parallel because each member has some expectations but it often pushed them to a breaking point by a male which had played and make a dangerous problem to their life by his relationship. Through her narrative, The Girl on the Train it consumes and portrayed the women oppression and describes to expose their identity.

A heterotopic perception of ‘wall’ in psychological thriller films: a place, a labyrinth and a panoptic power

A heterotopic perception of ‘wall’ in psychological thriller films: a place, a labyrinth and a panoptic power

ARTISTIC HYPERPLANE. GIOVANNI ARPINO – DINO RISI, NARTIN BREST – GIOVANNI ARPINO

The article considers current cultural problematics – connections and interrelationships in the field of “literature and cinematography”. The importance of literary works as one of the foundations of the activity of modern cinematographers is emphasized. The significance of successful feature (artistic) cinema for raising the status of individual literary texts is identified. The article singles out the figure of the Italian writer and journalist Giovanni Arpino, provides a brief outline of his life and work, and emphasizes the diversity of his literary interests. Of special interest in the context of the research is the fact that prose works of Giovanni Arpino were repeatedly addressed by film directors and that feature films based on his works oftentimes turned into cultural events on a European and worldwide scale. The article pays special attention to Giovanni Arpino’s novel “Darkness and. Honey” (“Il buio e il miele”), which at the time of its publication in 1969 did not receive the same recognition as a number of his earlier prose works. The characteristics of the main plot and psychological properties of the novel “Darkness and Honey” are presented. The research points out the eloquent fact that the novel in question aroused wide social interest after first the Italian director Dino Risi staged a psychological story called “Profumo di donna”, and then the Hollywood director Martin Brest staged a psychological thriller “Scent of a Woman”. The compositional and conceptual features of each of these films are analyzed in detail, while the gender specificity realized in the films “Profumo di donna” and “Scent of a Woman” is identified. The article justifies the conclusion that the plane of “literature and cinematography” can be transformed into the hyperplane of “literature – cinematography – literature”.

“Didn’t that sound like the north was calling us?” Imagined geographies and Cold War legacies in Sofi Oksanen’s Dog Park (Koirapuisto)

The article presents a discussion of Finnish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen’s 2019 novel Dog Park (Koirapuisto), a social and psychological thriller about two Ukrainian women working in the Ukrainian fertility industry, offering surrogacy services to Western clients. The novel explores some of the new modes of exchange and cultural encounter that were established between Ukraine and the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It presents a reflection of the social and human consequences of the transition from communism to capitalism but is also a story of how the legacy of Cold War geopolitics continues to shape European mental geographies and experiences at the intersection of East and West. Drawing on concepts from human geography and postcolonial studies, the article offers a reading of Oksanen’s novel focusing especially on how the novel negotiates these geopolitical shifts as well as the position of the Nordic countries on the changing European map.

Horror and the Cube Films: An unlikely medium for the negotiation of Nationalist-Cultural ideologies

Over the past several decades, scholarship has come to recognise the unexpected significance of horror cinema ventures as both culturally and politically relevant. One of Canada’s greatest horror film successes was Vincenzo Natali’s 1997 psychological thriller Cube that metaphorically explores the suffocating nature of vocational social relations under the conditions of a patriarchal military-industrial capitalism. So innovative was its premise that US interests quickly acquired the rights to produce and distribute Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) and Cube Zero (2004), but they were just as quick to reformulate the most subversive critique of the original film. Two decades later, in 2021, Japanese producers released a remake of the original film (which was so popular there), although it also re-coded the thematic critique, just as the American sequels had done. With this group of films across three national production traditions arises an opportunity to “detect shifts in the ideological constellation”, as Slavoj Žižek has argued, by “compar[ing] consecutive remakes of the same story” (2011, p. 61). Following primarily Herbert Marcuse’s understanding of political repressive tolerance, this article demonstrates the way in which constructions of cultural identity are negotiated across national traditions in the age of globalisation. Cube and its follow-ups demonstrate the nationalist-inflected limits of critical expression in the way that each subsequent film attempts to re-focus and re-code the horrors of the narrative machine in order to assert their own nationalist sensibilities threatened by the cultural levelling effect of globalisation in an age of transnational cinema distribution.

Of monsters and men: Physical attractiveness and the appearance of monstrosity in Netflix’s You

The series You, which has become part of the cultural zeitgeist since the first season became available on Netflix in December 2018, has introduced a protagonist at the same time in line and notably different from other serialized serial killers. By establishing the main character, played by former Gossip Girl heartthrob Penn Badgley, not only as the protagonist but romantic lead in a format blurring conventions from both the psychological thriller and the romance, the series challenges viewers to negotiate their attraction for a television character that seems ‘unloveable’. Portrayed as both a (literal) stalker and serial killer in the series, how viewers talk about Joe Goldberg underlines an understanding of the contemporary monstrous body as a site of manifestation. Through a discourse analysis of comments posted on Twitter and YouTube about the show and its main character, this article highlights how viewers interrogate questions of monstrosity and morality through the visuality of the body. As an interpretive repertoire centred on Embodiment, highlighting the attractive and non-threatening body functions as a practice of meaning-making that is aware of, but does not necessarily follow an ‘intended’ reading by the producers of popular culture.

Taking the "Psycho" out of "Psycho-Killer"

“Psycho”, “maniac”, and “madman” are all words that are found to be synonymous with serial killers and criminal activity. For decades, the media has perpetuated an extremely harmful image that those suffering from mental illness are violent and dangerous. These portrayals can be found across mediums from fictional books and movies to docuseries and podcasts. In the realm of fiction, specifically, some of the most harmful depictions can be found in horror films. These films tend to paint their villains to be caricatures of various psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder), and narcissistic personality disorder. These misrepresentations are not only grossly exaggerated but also highly inaccurate. In this piece, I will explore and expose the negative distortions of mental illness in various horror films. The scope will focus on two of the most influential psychological thrillers in the industry: Psycho and The Shining. These films each depict an antagonist who displays exaggerated traits indicative of mental illness. By deconstructing and comparing these traits with modern research on the mental illnesses they are meant to represent, I will expose the inaccuracies of these portrayals. Furthermore, I will outline the lasting impacts of these inaccuracies on both the public perceptions of mental illness, as well as help-seeking among individuals suffering from psychological disorders. Even if the characters in these popular films are fictional, the stigma they direct toward mental illness is very real and must be addressed.

Blonde (2022)

Blonde (2022)

“Nordic (Scandinavian) Noir” vs Scandinavian Detective: a Debatable Aspect of Study

The phenomenon of “Nordic (Scandinavian) noir”, which has formed in the literature of Northern Europe in the last two decades, is studied. The author considers the works of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian prose writers and proves the insufficient legitimacy of their attribution to “noir”. The term noir is substantiated. Based on the analysis of the novels by S. Larsson, J. Nesbø, H. Flood, M. Lindstein, A. Mette Hancock, the relevance of the term detective in relation to the work of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish prose writers is stated. It has been established that the definition of “Scandinavian (Nordic) noir” is not applicable to any of the newest Scandinavian novels. In terms of genre, in fact, each of these works is a detective story that combines other genre elements. “Millennium” by S. Larsson, “The Snowman”, “Leopard”, “Redneck” by J. Nesbø, “Corpse Flower” by A. M. Hancock synthesize elements of a detective, family and social novel. “The Therapist” H. Flod is a synthesis of a psychological thriller and a detective story. “A sect from a misty island” by M. Lindsteen combines the properties of a gothic novel (a closed chronotope of a manor, which is an analogue of a castle chronotope; the presence of a villain hero who determines the plot deployment) and a psychological detective story (an investigating heroine who reconstructs the events of the past, relying on logic to solve the mystery and giving realistic motivation to what is happening).

Boy in a White Room by Karl Olsberg

Reviewed by: Boy in a White Room by Karl Olsberg Natalie Berglind Olsberg, Karl Boy in a White Room. Chicken House/Scholastic, 2023 [256p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781338831849 $18.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 7-10 A boy wakes up in a white room with no memory of who he is. A computer program that calls itself Alice answers some of his questions, but none of the ones he really wants to know—like where and who he is. He does, however, have access to the internet, where he reads about a fifteen-year-old son of a millionaire who was injured in a shooting. Soon, he meets someone he assumes is his father, Henning Jaspers, an investor in an AI company that does data mining; the boy learns his own name, Manuel, and finds out he is in a virtual reality as he recovers and regains his memories. In the meantime, Manuel lives vicariously through people on Eyestream, a service where people record their everyday activities, and recognizes a girl who claims to be his sister . . . but Henning Jaspers doesn’t have a daughter. It’s clear that all the information fed to Manuel is being manipulated, so he’s going to have to go around his father and the people who monitor him 24/7 to find the truth. This 2017 German import meshes the best elements of psychological thrillers and sci-fi. Along with Manuel, readers are left to guess what’s real and what’s not, and to determine who’s genuinely helping and who’s sabotaging his discoveries. The ethical and philosophical debates are layered and sophisticated, reminiscent of The Matrix, with the possibilities of virtual realities and artificial intelligence explored to surprising depth. A few scenes calling back to familiar literary works trip up the pacing, but otherwise this novel is an assured page-turner with plenty for readers to chew on long after they’ve finished it. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Psychological Profile of a Serial Killer (Based on the Novel “Silence” by Thomas Raab)

The research deals with the issue of genre hybridization in the novel “Silence – Chronicle of a Killer” written by a contemporary Austrian writer Thomas Raab. An examination of the novel's composition and structure, as a text in motion, has been accomplished in the article. The novel “Silence” is an excellent illustration of how the genre of adventure has been adapted to include elements of science fiction. This novel is a love tale, a rural life saga, a formation narrative, and a psychological thriller all in one. As a fictionalized account of the life of a serial murderer with hypersensitive hearing who became a legend for his mental torment and suffering, it serves both as a biography and a thriller. Novelist Raab uses elements from classic horror novels like Frankenstein, German romantics, in particular, G. Kleist, the tale of Casper Hauser, and detective novels like Friedrich Durrenmatt's "Promise" to tell the story of Casper Hauser's disappearance in his book. A new aesthetic experience may be formed at various degrees of identification ranging from naive perception to higher levels of literary reception. Concentration is required for poetic and philosophical substance. Michel Focalut's nomadism, marginality, and authoritarian power rhetoric have been discussed in this article. The novel's ultimate content has been disclosed as the aphesis torment, emotional sublimation, as the birth of an artwork and, at the same time, death of the author, who exposes discourses, accountable for creating texts that are allocated to him.

Cape Fear (1962) Filminin Türsel Açidan Değerlendirilmesi

The concept of genre has had a significant place in cinema studies since the 1970s. Genre films are commercial feature films telling identical stories with similar characters. Definition and debate of genus and genres in cinema has tended to focus on mainstream, commercial films in general and Hollywood films in particular. In this study, it is aimed to make a generic evaluation of the movie Cape Fear directed by John Lee Thompson in 1962. The movie was selected with a teleological sample method because it inhibits the characteristics of some main genres and some sub-genres and makes the changes of some main species visible over time. The movie has the characteristics of psychological-thriller, psycho-thriller, film noir and neo-noir. The film was chosen in terms of both showing the change in the main genre, film noir, and blurring the boundaries of psycho-thriller and psychological thriller, which are two sub-genres of thriller. Movie selected as a sample, analyzed according to the generic criticism method. In this direction Cape Fear is evaluated from a generic perspective under the headings of “subject, narrative structure, characters, iconography and direction of photography.”