David Buckingham Theory

"Genre is not simply given by the culture; rather it is in a constant process of negotiation and and change" 

-David Buckingham 


Psychological Thriller is a sub genre of Thriller. They usually have a 'dissolving sense of reality', and they incorporate elements of mystery, drama, action and horror. Psychological Thriller are based on books and other movies of the Horror genre.




What David Buckingham is saying is that Psychological Thrillers don't exist as an genre. It changes because of the views of society because genre have to stay relevant, if they don't they wont relate to an audience and the audiences take to certain movies. I do agree with this statement because over time the production of Psychological Thriller movies has changed, as the audiences have become more liberal. I think that they are getting away with more narratives.

'The Most Dangerous Game' - Directed by Irving Pichel

This movie was released in 1932 in black and white. It was a short film being only 78 minutes long. Keywords to describe it were, madmen, escape, psychopath and slaughter. These are stereotypical conventions of a psychological thriller, however the certificate rating of 12 shoes that only frequent violent scene were shown. Therefore, they were not allowed to empathize on murder scenes. You can see with this movie that the audience would have been shocked to see these type of films on screens. In comparison to what is being done today in present day.



Brimstone and Treacle - Directed by Richard Loncraine

This movie was released in 1982. This movie was made in colour and it received an certificate rating 18, which means that violence was shown, including blood and gore also bad language and sexual scenes such as rape. This shows that the audiences where becoming more used to the idea of 'thriller' and being scared.

Now in present with everything being exposed online, and web 2.0. Audiences are pretty much desensitized when it comes to movies. We also are using more technology and cgi to film something that they didnt have before.