Music
The music in psychological horror films are tense and loud and create the 'edge-of-your-seat' atmosphere. Because the films are constantly leaving you on edge, confused but quite scared at the same time, the music that could create that feeling. Depending on the different moments in the story line, the music would be different. If there is a tense moment, for example if one of our characters would be in danger then the music might start of quiet and then build up loader to follow or even influence our emotions. Another example would be if a character, especially in a psychological horror, figures something drastic out towards the plot line the music might become very sharp, loud and dramatic to evidence the importance of the moment and to make it a lot more obvious. The music is one of the key factors of a film as it sets the scene when contributed to every other element, it can also influence your feelings vastly and can link your emotions with that characters situation in the scene/s.
Typical Characters
The conventional character that we would see in a psychological horror would be a character who is unstable and who's sanity we aren't quite sure of. A person who we think there is something wrong with but we aren't sure, this is effective because it makes us second guess ourselves making our thought quite unstable, much like the character, linking us to the story. A typical psychological horror character would be someone have a key image in your mind of the way they look, looking quite shifty and someone who if you'd see in the street might cross the road to avoid. So this character seems quite conspicuous, but not in a too obvious way. They would also need to be clever and use their intelligence to their advantage because that can help them avoid being caught in whatever it is that they have done, which adds more suspense to the story line, especially if you are seeing the story from the side of the killer. Juxtaposed to the obvious, most psychological horror films do not reveal the killer until the very end and they try to make it as less obvious as possible to shock you at the end and to keep you from guessing the story line. Another character, maybe a side line character would be a person that would scare you on the street. A person that would more than likely when added into a tense script make you feel uncomfortable. This can add to the overall uncomfortable feeling that the characters create.
An example that shows the idea of a character that would make you quite uncomfortable especially because of their appearance is one of the patients from Shutter Island. Her unusual appearance, especially her balding hair, her wide gaze, her skinny frame and the fact that she is handcuffed, makes us feel unsafe and gives almost the 'spine-shivering' feeling that effectively creates an eerie atmosphere. This aids to the genre as part of the psychological horror theme is to make the audience uncomfortable, which this achieves. Locations
A stereotypical psychological horror would be set in quite the eerie atmosphere for example maybe an asylum or a hospital, as these are locations that don't have positive connotations when they are initially considered so for a film to be set in these location would already set up the atmosphere for something quite scary and negative. On the other hand, a not so stereotypical location would be a place that is quite familiar. Whether that would be in a home where you would most likely feel safe or a school (especially if the target audience is of a younger/teenage age range) this would be effective as this would make the audience question their safety in the environments that they would usually consider safe or a place not to be reckoned with. Especially because a psychological horror would definitely leave you asking questions during the entirety of the film this is more than effective as it breaks a norm.
An example of the location that adds to the atmosphere is Nightmare on Elm Street of 1984. Some of the dream sequences in the beginning after the first death are set in the protagonist's school. This should be a place where you would feel safe and it's an everyday location for her so for Wes Craven to chose this location would definitely play with that fact, making the audience feel uneasy because of the usual 'safe' environments and flipping that idea.
Conventions
Conventions of a stereotypical psychological horror would be elements such as the way the killer is usually perceived. They appear to just be an average, normal person and in no way to be feared or thought of negatively. There are not usually any usual physical signs that would identify the person as a killer, this is because they may lead an average normal lifestyle with no other possible reasons to point to the way that they are, which is the element of psychology as you wouldn't even suspect that person which creates the feeling of being quite unsafe. A psychological horror will usually play on people's vulnerabilities and fears too. This works effectively as a fear such as claustrophobia, inserted into a scene like making a character enclosed, would create that fear also with the audience. This would definitely make the scene a lot more tense, playing on the audiences emotions too and could possibly make them unstable too, which is the idea on which psychological horror is based around. Another aspect of a psychological horror is that they rely on the audience’s mind to create the horror effect, with less gore noticeable like in Slasher films where the film is heavily dependent on it to create effect.
Example
An example of a psychological horror that has a few of the spoken elements would be the 2003 film 'Identity'.The film has 10 main characters which all in our own way seem a little odd. We are thrown in on a very strange time in the plot, showing that all these characters are together for a particular ironic reason but they are unbeknownst to why, and so are. So we are kept questioning. As the film goes along we are taught a lot more about each character, each seeming odder and more conspicuous at each reveal. All these characters are in a stranded location (a motel) all together with no way to be split up because of flooding caused by a storm which is blocking the roads. Soon enough, murders begin to happen. There are certain character's that are suspected more than others, so it leads you to believe one thing. Although, as time goes on and more characters die (including the ones we suspected) it plays on the mind set of the characters and of the audience. The fact that the plot line messes with comfort zones and ideas like this effective confuses and conceals the reader inside this story, as they are intrigued to find out or even work out who the killer actually is. The fact that pathetic fallacy is used throughout the entirety of the film definitely has an atmospheric effect on the audience. The fact that it is constantly raining and rain is more or less constantly heard, whether it be diagetic on non diagetic, effectively creates the feeling of entrapment like the characters are feeling. This is because the rain is the reason they are all stuck together and the fact that there is no stopping it shows there is no way out, this feelings rakes in on the audience too.
The music through out the film is extremely tense, loud and effective. This adds extra emotions especially when the 'killer' is almost caught and aids the camera angles through out the film also. A lot of the camera angles are either medium close up, extreme close up or long shot. The medium close up is to get in depth with each character, but the extreme close up is to really tell how the character is reacting to the situations and this also helps us decide who we think as an audience is committing the killings, as well as the long shot. The long shot effectively shows us the entirety of the character, such as their appearance and the way the walk/stand. These could all be things that contribute to whether we think they are guilty or not. The fact that we use their appearance to see whether we suspect them is key in this film as we are just deducting from what we know of the characters and being quite presumptuous which is what the film is based on and also how the characters presume each other.
The plot line has a huge twist. The killer turns out to be a small boy, the child of another man who was previously killed. The obviously shocks the rest of the survivors, but there is a bigger twist.
These people in the motel were the personalities of one man, Malcolm. None of the characters were real at all. It turns out that Malcolm was convicted of killing a family, but was also suffering with split personality disorder. He was up for the death penalty unless his psychologist could get him to himself kill off the personalities one way or another and show that he could function his own mind again, as he claimed that he was not functioning under his own personality when the murders were committed so essentially it wasn't him. The 'killings' were his way of killing off each personality in his head.
The fact that there was a huge twist at the end completely baffles the audience adding an exciting element to the film and leaving them wondering why they had never thought of that concept at all.
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