Psychological Thriller

The conventions of a Psychological Thriller are:

• It always has a misleading story line
• Has unusual happenings
• Always has clever characters involved that always think ahead of everyone else
• The film builds up to reveal something shocking at the end
• The characters always have a fear of death
• There's a danger on a mental level rather than physical
• Characters are in conflict with their mind and finally
• 2 or more characters are preying on each others sanity.

 After watching a clip from 'Memento' by Christopher Nolan (which is a psychological thriller) we found many conventions that it covered. He has a long term memory and rememebers who he is and that his wife was killed, and after having the accident can not remember recent things that he does and has to remind himself of these things. His long term memory helps the audience to identify with him. The character is in conflict with his own mind, and tries to remember what has happened and avenge the death of his wife. From the clip, we see that the character shows him going back and forth between time, not only to give the audience an understanding of what happened in the past, but also so that we can see how the clues piece together to make sense of what we see. His flashbacks are in black and white and not linear making it interesting and easy for the audience to defrenciate between the two happenings of the film. Christopher Nolan is a common director for choosing a mature cast and for doing this genre of film.