History of the Genre

Psychological Thriller: a brief history

Alfred Hitchcock

Psychological thrillers mainly started in the 1920's where technology was very limited so the movies that were produced weren't very clear or realistic compared to today, 'The Lodger' was a British psychological thriller produced in 1926 by Alfred Hitchcock, a very well known British producer and director and mainly worked with psychological thrillers. This film was black and white and was silent meaning that the full effect could not be created due to music and sound playing major part in the psychological thriller genre. Hitchcock started adding colour to his films in 1950's with his first one being 'Strangers on a train' in 1951.

  

 Over time, psychological thrillers have become much more
gory, violent, bad language and involved sexual scenes like rape, in the 1980's 'Brimstone and treacle' was released (1982) with an age 18 rating and contained these elements. 

Over the years the film ratings have gone up meaning that this genre has gotten scarier and gorier. In the present day different types of technology has been used and the use of camera shots, angles and how the scene cuts and edits and 
music is what makes these films scarier. Psychological thrillers have come a long way since the 1920's.

Older psychological thrillers:

                         

Interview with the man himself Alfred Hitchcock: