Conventions of psychological Horror films

Conventions of psychological Horror films 

When creating a film it's always important to take notice of any source material or any similar films that can be used as influences and act as a foundation on which the film can be built upon.

The most important film when creating a film of this specific genre is to correctly and effectively convey the psychological aspect of the film, as it needs to contain deeper mental themes to be classified as a psychological horrror. The more general approaches to this particular genre include themes that include.

Mental scarring, mental health problems with the main character or protagonist. It can also look over a tradgic event that would occur in everyday life, essentially turning what is a normal situation, into something more deep and sinister through the use of underlying tones and establishing a sinister bleak look in some of the shots to get the feel for the dark vibe that needs to be conveyed.


A typical inclusion of psychological horrors is the use of weaponry, whether it be for the protagonist or antagonist within the film, weapons are a common theme with this genre as it suggests a decline of the characters mental health with the use of weapons such as knives for example.

Something that works in tandem with the use of weaponry is also the setting, for example if a murder or attack is going to take place, then the setting would have to be appropriate but also realistic for this event to occur, for example a dark path or a wooded area would be considered a suitable setting for one of these events to take place. So to reiterate, it's important for the setting to both be dark and disturbing and realistic.