The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The Psycho-thriller has been used as an umbrella term in older genre studies to refer to any horror film where the menace is not supernatural or science-fictional and is mundane in nature. The menace of such shows are commonly Psychos and Serial Killers, although not all psycho-thrillers necessarily feature psychos.
Psycho-thrillers can be murder mysteries – stories that build up to the revelation of who among a group is the killer – where there is more emphasis on the murders and stalking. Others take the structure of a Gothic novel where a protagonist may be at the centre of a series of happenings that unveil in terms of elaborate deception and gaslight schemes, where there is an emphasis on the suspense and horror elements.
The psycho-thriller began on screen in the 1920s as part of the Old Dark House thriller. Its greatest flourishing was in the 1960s with the success of Psycho (1960), which saw a number of copycat films about killers with gender-conflicted issues. Many of the copies draw on the earlier French classic Les Diaboliques (1955) in their creation of elaborate (frequently improbably contrived) plots involving schemes to kill, defraud or drive the protagonist insane. A unique subset of these were the Italian Giallo thrillers that offered up psycho-thrillers plots with an emphasis on extravagant visuals, sado-sexual eroticism and ultra-violent despatches.
The 1980s brought a series of thrillers about female stalkers with Fatal Attraction (1987) and several other works with people having their homes and workplaces invaded by disturbed individuals. In the 1990s, Basic Instinct (1992) brought the psycho-sexual thriller where there was much emphasis on eroticism and usually a desirable but psychopathic Femme Fatale at the centre.
Since the mid-2000s, the psycho-thriller has largely died away as a genre in theatrically-released films, although is still alive and well in numerous thrillers made for cable tv.
Dark and gripping thriller from Denis Villeneuve about child abductions and a distraught parent who decides to torture a suspect to find their whereabouts.; Superbly well written thriller that raises some big contemporary issues about the legitimacy of torture. Both Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal give utterly convincing performances
Thriller with a heroine working in an abandoned hospital amid sinister happenings that draws substantially on the fine Danish film Nightwatch. Does an okay if familiar job making us constantly doubt everything that happens before arriving at an ending that only confuses
One of the defining classics of the genre, enormously influential, muchly imitated and parodied and possibly the most over-analysed film ever. Alfred Hitchcock expertly creates a creepy psycho-thriller in which he delights in lulling us and undermining expectation
Over Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, there hangs the single question of “Why?” The result seems a futile conceit, one only designed to infuriate those who regard the original in such high esteem
Psycho did not need a sequel but this does a scrupulous and exacting job, bringing back Anthony Perkins and paying a great deal of homage in many small details. The script comes with a considerable cleverness
Interestingly torrid 1960s psycho-thriller featuring a number of then unknown faces
Brian De Palma made a return to his trademark psycho-thriller for the first time in several years but the benchmarks of the genre were now The Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct and De Palma’s wildly contorted plot and flourishes of style for their own sake seem dated
Chris Sarandon is a writer who becomes embroiled in solving a series of murder that mimic his own books. An okay set-up that rarely moves beyond the unfolding of cliches
A psycho-thriller directed by renowned cinematographer William A. Fraker that is never more than a series of elliptical, soft-focus images
This tv movie was the first English-language remake of the classic French thriller Les Diaboliques. It follows the original closely and still works effectively, although being shot in colour rather than black-and-white lacks the stark tension. Sam Waterston gives a performance of amazing cruelty as the husband
Routine variant on the psycho child theme, which heads into rather dubious territory when it leads us to think a series of killings are being conducted by an autistic child
James Franco’s younger brother Dave makes a very impressive directorial debut in a taut psycho-thriller of sharp adept twists about two couples whose weekend getaway is torn asunder by guilty secrets and a lurking psycho
Mini-series made for the BBC that seems to have closely studied the late 80s/90s psycho-thriller – Fatal Attraction, Single White Female. Morven Christie is a pregnant mother who takes a leave of absence from work only to discover that her replacement appears to be plotting to kill her
The second effort from the revived Hammer Films, which creates some reasonable creepy effect in the story of Hilary Swank dealing with Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a stalker landlord after moving into a dream apartment
This rehashes Cape Fear, remade by Martin Scorsese the same year, with Denzel Washington as an upstanding lawyer whose life is torn apart by vengeful ex-con John Lithgow. A frequently ludicrous script is made worse by Russell Mulcahy’s overwrought direction
While the title suggests something of the classic The Hitcher, this reminds more of And Soon the Darkness with its image of tourists being stalked in the pastoral French countryside. Ravishingly photographed, creating a strong sense of dis-ease to arrive at a great twist ending
A standout Australian psycho-thriller with Stacy Keach as a truck driver who believes he has seen a killer on the highway. Director Richard Franklin creates a series of astonishing set-pieces.
1970s disaster movie with George Segal tracking Timothy Bottoms as a mad bomber blowing up rollercoasters
Tame psycho-thriller that plays out as a teen version of Fatal Attraction or Single White Female where Minka Kelly gets a psychopathic dorm roommate in Leighton Meester
Alfred Hitchcock conducts an experiment in shooting a film in only eight takes. Based on the true-life Leopold-Lowe case where two gay students murdered a child as an exercise in moral superiority.
Forget the grim and sadistic sequels that followed, this low-budget directorial debut from James Wan is a masterwork that conjures unbearable dread and tension in its study of characters forced to consider the horribly inconceivable
UK. 1976. Crew Director/Producer – Pete Walker, Screenplay – David McGillivray, Photography – Peter Jessop, Music – Stanley Myers, Makeup Supervisor – George Partleton, Art Direction – Chris Burke. Production Company – Peter Walker (Heritage) Ltd. Cast Lynne Frederick (Samantha Gray Falconer/Jean Longmarsh), Jack Watson (William Haskin), John Leyton (Alan Falconer), Stephanie Beacham (Beth), John […]
Often wrongly pegged as a slasher film, this is more of a 1940s psycho-thriller with slasher sensibilities. The notorious Michael Winner directs with typically crude and unsophisticated effect
A psycho-thriller that offers up the plot of Jane Eyre by way of Psycho. With Bette Davis rising to form as an alcoholic mother
Standout thriller with great scripting and performances where detective Al Pacino goes undercover in the dating scene to track a killer and comes up against a sultry Ellen Barkin
Fritz Lang made this psychological thriller during his American period – a retelling of the Bluebeard story by way of Rebecca. Lang delivers an times stunning evocation of film noir
Creepy UK tv mini-series with David Tennant as a psycho boyfriend obsessed with Kate Ashfield
One of a series of Fatal Attraction copycats, a psycho-thriller where Mel Harris has her life torn apart by psycho secretary Sheila Kelley
Ultra-trashy thriller with Morgan Fairchild as a tv newsreader stalked by next-door neighbour Andrew Stevens where she engages in the title seduction to eliminate him. A really bad film
Tense psycho-thriller with Mia Farrow as a blind woman stalked through her home by a killer who has slaughtered her family
An erotic thriller that stars Angie Everhart as a probation officer who is drawn into the web of her client Richard Grieco who may or may not be a serial killer
Considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films, this centres around Joseph Cotten as the favourite uncle who comes to town as his niece increasingly suspects that he may be a serial killer
Early Vincent Price film with he as a sinister psychiatrist terrorising a woman who witnessed him murdering his wife
An Airplane/Naked Gun styled parody of The Silence of the Lambs
Part of the late 1980s/early 90s spate of post-Fatal Attraction psycho-thrillers featuring deranged women stalkers. A creepy Jennifer Jason Leigh moves into Bridget Fonda’s apartment and then turns obsessive
Disappointing remake of Brian De Palma’s 1973 Siamese twins psycho-thriller that changes many elements and crucially lacks De Palma’s stylistic showmanship
Julia Roberts plays a wife fleeing from an abusive and psychopathic husband (a darkly urbane Patrick Bergin in a quite demoniac performance) in this psycho-thriller that was a considerable hit in its day. Slick and beautifully photographed, this sustains a commendable head of tension
One of the more routine of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers. The artily stylistic set-pieces are disappointingly average and even the plot relatively straightforward
An adaptation of an Ira Levin thriller that has been turned into a blatant copy of Basic Instinct featuring Sharon Stone in more steamy scenes in a plot involving video voyeurism in an apartment building
Trashy Australian psycho-stalker film set in the world of fashion modelling that was bizarrely passed off as a copy of Halloween in the US
Psycho-thriller with Erika Eleniak and Monika Schnarre trapped in a snowbound cabin
Okay psycho-thriller where Stefanie Powers is stalked in her new apartment while her son develops a mysterious imaginary companion
One of the lesser known John Carpenter films, a tv movie in which Lauren Hutton is stalked by a neighbour spying on her from the apartment building opposite
A work of brooding Italian Gothic, a loose sequel to The Terror of Dr Hichcock. Featuring oodles of atmosphere and the genre’s indisputable queen Barbara Steele as a wife haunted by a dead husband
A remake of the classic film noir psycho-thriller. Now the story is conducted in colour and with a name star cast but misses all the atmosphere the original had by a wide mile
A Giallo thriller about a series of murders that take place during the rehearsal for a play. Michele Soavi directs a series of vivid suspense set-pieces
Pierre David produced psycho-thriller where Maryam d’Abo is befriended by Jay Underwood who proves to be a stalker in a creepily effective performance
One of the less effective films in the oeuvre of Dario Argento. Another giallo thriller, this has the same flourishes of style in sporadic moments but the plot is even more confusing than usual
Psycho-thriller with Andrea Roth as a woman who enviegles herself into a household with malevolent intent
Great psycho-thriller with Terry O’Quinn as a man determined to marry into the perfect family who then slaughters the family when they fail to meet expectations. This digs into 80s Family Values with scabrous regard
Disastrous remake of the classic 80s horror film, which comes shorn of its biting satire on Family Values and turned into just another teen horror film
The English-language debut from South Korea’s Park Chan-wook is a supremely controlled film, more like a period arthouse film than drenched in the buckets of gore we expect of Park … Essentially a reworking of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, a film that takes place all in smouldering tensions
William Castle psycho-thriller made to exploit the successes of both PsychoWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with an axe-wielding Joan Crawford letting all stops go
Routine psycho-thriller where Mimi Rogers’ home is invaded by psycho babysitter David Orth
The film that Sean S. Cunningham went on to direct after the huge hit of Friday the 13th. Though sold as a horror film, this is more of a kidnap thriller
Cited as the first film noir, this is a fascinating psycho film about a man tormented by guilt over convicting the wrong man
Australian thriller that is a blatant copy of Fatal Attraction
One of the most darkly engrossing of Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers, a classic about two strangers who make a murder pact after meeting on a train. Where any other director would have made a straight thriller, Hitchcock lingers on the mordant humour with unnerving effect
Passable attempt to return to the heyday of the 1990s erotic thriller. Made on the cheap side, this does an okay job of covering the basics until an improbable denouement
This is essentially Fatal Attraction relocated to a high school where athlete Jesse Bradford is stalked by Erika Christensen. This collapses in a series of ridiculous motivations
Beautifully tightly wound thriller that takes place in a hotel room between a bank robber, his hostage and an escaped convict where nothing is what it seems
Strange film from Spanish director Joseph Larraz about mysterious happenings at a country mansion
Tawdry copy of Basic Instinct, an erotic thriller about a woman detective going undercover to investigate a series of murders that are linked to a health club
TV movie psycho-thriller produced by Aaron Spelling (plus assorted Anglo-horror veterans) where heiress Barbara Parkins thinks she is going crazy. Barbara Stanwyck goes the Baby Jane route
The first of Hammer’s psycho-thrillers – a departure for the studio with them abandoning their Victorian era setting for a contemporary one – in an attempt to copy the success of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Quite a reasonable effort that comes without the improbably contrived plots of some of their later psycho-thrillers
Scream writer Kevin Williamson’s made his directorial debut with this playful thriller in which Katie Holmes and fellow students imprison a teacher who has marked down her grades
A Fatal Attraction copycat in which executive Timothy Hutton finds that seductive temp secretary Lara Flynn Boyle is killing off all rivals at his firm. This has the reputation as a Golden Turkey classic.
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers with all the stylistically wild and over-the-top deaths one expects as a horror writer finds people being murdered with pages from his books in their mouths
Creaky old film that feels like it belongs in the 1940s about a series of murders at a wax museum. It does have a great cast line-up of genre veterans
One of the erotic thrillers made after Basic Instinct, essentially an ripoff of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle where a vengeful Kari Wuhrer becomes a nanny seeking vengeance for the death of her husband
Usually a scriptwriter, Wesley Strick makes a reasonable directorial debut in this psycho-thriller about a white trash couple killing those in their way to getting back the daughter that was taken away from them
British tv movie variant on Fatal Attraction where a woman is stalked by her ex-husband Peter Davison
Reasonable psycho-thriller where landlord Lindsay Crouse takes on increasingly deranged tenant Zoe McClellan
A disappointingly poor copy of Basic Instinct with Lorraine Bracco giving a really bad performance as the Sharon Stone equivalent who may be killing people around detective James Belushi
Another giallo thriller from Dario Argento filled with all the wild bursts of imagination, bizarre plot twists and set-pieces we have come to expect from him
Woman directed New Zealand horror film where Annie Whittle is attacked by a mysterious assailant
A poorly made Australian copy of Basic Instinct where a detective and his partner are investigated a serial killer. All the heated sexuality comes out tamely
A giallo thriller from Mario Bava that is often regarded as the prototype of the slasher film. The film borrows from Agatha Christie with people isolated on an island being killed amid Bava’s artily extravagant set-ups
A psycho-thriller that hearkens back to the Fatal Attraction and the copycats it inspired where a newly engaged Rosario Dawson has to deal with her fiance’s vengeful ex, an ice cold Kathrine Heigl
Psycho-thriller where husband and wife Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe are terrorised by psycho cop Ray Liotta
David Hemmings stars in a well written thriller about a school teacher whose pupils confess to a murder and engage in a series of psychological games with him
A grippingly good Dutch thriller about a husband who becomes obsessed following the disappearance of his wife, while at the tame time we also get a parallel plot about the comically jolly serial killer responsible
Disastrous English-language remake of the brilliant Dutch thriller The Vanishing, which miscalculates everything including mangling the classic ending
Psycho-thriller set aboard a yacht as a couple invite old friends Eric Roberts and Connie Nielsen to join them only to find they have sinister intent
Okay stalker psycho-thriller designed as a vehicle for the British model Twiggy that after a slow start eventually develops some sharp twists and surprises
Nicely chilling film in which Maika Monroe believes that the person in the apartment opposite might be stalking her
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
Robert Aldrich had massive success with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and later produced another Grand Dame Guignol film here with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon playing psychological games with one another
Psycho-thriller featuring a mad Bette Davis torturing her sister Joan Crawford. This held considerable shock at the time for seeing two former glamorous Hollywood stars beyond their glory days and going nuts. The film’s success inspired a whole fad of imitators
Colin Minihan is an up and rising genre directors well worth keeping an eye. Here he makes a taut and effective survival story where a woman is hunted by her wife who turns psychopathic after a getaway to a cabin in the woods
TV movie that comes with a great opening hook – a family receive phone calls from a brother who died 15 years earlier
Excellent thriller set around a roadside diner where Radha Mitchell becomes caught between parties hunting the other where seems to be who they appear
A throwback to the 1980s/90s psycho-thriller that came out after Fatal Attraction featuring a surrogate mother who develops a stalkerish fixation on a husband. The crucial difference is that this is played with an all-Black cast but in a way that sends out weirdly uncomfortable racial messages
Smart and tightly wound psycho-thriller as psychotherapist Annabella Sciorra is wound into the murder of a patient
Dazzlingly stylish psycho-thriller from the underrated Donald Cammell with David Keith as a serial killer in a small Arizona town
French psycho-thriller where Sergi Lopez gives an unnervingly charming performance as a psychopathic schoolfriend who inserts himself into Laurent Lucas’s life
Slickly produced psycho-thriller that comes mired in controversy, featuring Amy Adams as an agoraphobe who maybe witnesses a murder.
I have to search my memory to think of another film that is so openly plagiaristic – this is almost a scene-for-scene remake of Steven Spielberg’s Duel about a man facing a killer truck on a highway. This misses the subtlety of the original so widely you could run a highway through it
An erotic thriller where a couple are stalked by psychopathic couple after venturing into the swingers scene, this comes with a ridiculously high-handed condemnatory moralism