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.
A remake of the 1992 film that starred Rebecca De Mornay as a psychopathic babysitter who enters a household seeking revenge. This updates the story for the 2020s, although is no less a conservative version than the original
An airport psycho-thriller that feels like wannabe Gillian Flynn that has been mounted as a vehicle for the talent-handicapped Sydney Sweeney. The whole plot hangs on a believability stretching mid-film twist revelation
Nightwatch about the paranoia of a morgue attendant on the night shift was a festival hit. After 29 years, the principals reunite for a sequel
Nicely chilling film in which Maika Monroe believes that the person in the apartment opposite might be stalking her
Slickly produced psycho-thriller that comes mired in controversy, featuring Amy Adams as an agoraphobe who maybe witnesses a murder.
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
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
Director Neil Jordan delves into the psycho-thriller with Chloe Grace Mortez being stalked by over-friendly senior Isabelle Huppert. Jordan makes an often contrived script into a gripping ride
Dementia 13 was a routine psycho-thriller elevated by the hand of a young Francis Ford Coppola. This remake adds ghosts and a home invasion to the mundane original, but fails to come anywhere near Coppola’s style
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
Antonio Banderas is a writer with a block, Jonathan Rhys Meyers a sinister stranger who moves in. Lots of tense psychological games between the two begin only for the film to almost immediately blow the premise
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
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
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 cougar version of Fatal Attraction with Jennifer Lopez stalked by a teenage boy. On every level this invites ridicule, from J-Lo sleepwalking through her performance to a director who has never made a good film to a script detached from human psychology
Blumhouse thriller about an old school friend who inserts himself into the lives of a successful couple and proceeds to stalk them. This produces several effective twists but ultimately feels too mannered
An amnesiac girl returns home to a large estate in the English countryside only to be made prisoner by her family. Reminiscent of one of the 1960s Hammer psycho-thriller, this is well-made and builds out a fine sense of alienation
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
Stephen King writes a screen adaptation of his own story about a wife who discovers that her husband is a serial killer. A strong premise that oddly misses most of the opportunities.
Michael Polish is one of the underrated American directors. Here an amnesiac Wes Bentley wakes up a prisoner of a wonderfully chilling Kate Bosworth who insists that she is his wife
TV movie remake of Virginia Andrews’ best-selling Gothic melodrama about children imprisoned in an attic. Even if more faithful to the book, this is no better than the 1987 film
Essentially a classical music version of Phone Booth with Elijah Wood trapped at a grand piano in front of a concert audience by a sniper. The results prove quite gripping
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
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
A formulaic psycho-thriller from the usually worthwhile Brad Anderson with Halle Berry as a 911 call operator who answers a call from an abducted Abigail Breslin that feels like a cable thriller ended on the big screen
Low-budget psycho-thriller about amnesia that tries hard in many areas but fails to generate enough contortion in terms of plot twists to make the show work
Psycho-thriller that plays out like a creaky old deranged relative in the cellar film retooled as a teen romance until an absurd mid-film conceptual twist irredeemably kills the film off
This feels like a post-Silence of the Lambs thriller with Amanda Seyfried as an abduction survivor trying to find her missing sister. The film never rises above the cliches of the genre
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
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
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
In his last ever produced screenplay, cult director Larry Cohen turns in a wonderfully playful script with Matthew Lillard as a screenwriting lecturer harassed by a killer only to find real-life doesn’t obey the same rules that screenplays do
Produced by Guillermo Del Toro, this Spanish film is an extremely good work about a blind woman stalked by a killer, featuring a script of sharp twists and grippingly suspenseful directorial set-pieces
Award-winning Darren Aronofsky film about the rivalry between two ballerinas. At heart though, this is no more than a Brian De Palma psycho-thriller with pretensions
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
Another pointless 1970s remake, in this case of the little-known British psycho-thriller about two tourists stalked in the French countryside (now transplanted to Argentina) with ho-hum results
A New Zealand-made film about a crime writer joining a party tramping through the bush as the group starts to be killed off by one among their number
An exquisitely directed homage to giallo cinema – a fascinating work that has been stripped of almost all dialogue that takes place on a purely visual level of sensation and body movement
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
Dario Argento makes a disappointing return to the giallo thriller where he made his name. With Argento’s characteristic murder set-pieces having been toned down, the results are nothing special
David Twohy has shown himself a standout screenwriter and director with the Riddick films but came unstuck with this effort where tourists in Hawaii come to believe their traveling companions are wanted killers. A film killed by far-fetched twists
Another variant on the evil child film featuring a maliciously psychopathic Isabelle Fuhrman
A psycho-thriller about birdwatching? Adapted from a stage play, this takes place on a single set consisting of only two men in a hut talking. The nuances of dialogue hold great subtlety and the film arrives at an effective twist ending
A British psycho-thriller that draws much from Steven Spielberg’s Duel with its story of a motorist trying to rescue his girlfriend after she is abducted by a never-seen truck driver
Another variant on the evil child theme, this suffers from far too mannered an approach where you keep waiting for it to pull back and sink its teeth into something shocking
Widely ridiculed psycho-thriller starring Lindsay Lohan at the height of her tabloid headline phase and giving a zero effort performance as twins. Quite what is going on in the confused screenplay is anybody’s guess
Tense and twist-filled thriller with Rachel Nichols trapped inside a carpark building by a psychopathic Wes Bentley
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
Blatant Saw copy from Roland Joffe, a director better known for his arthouse works, from a script by cult director Larry Cohen. This starts stylishly before collapsing in a series of ridiculous twists
A hackneyed rehash of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window where Shia LaBeouf is a teenager on home detention spying with a pair of binoculars who realises that his neighbour might be a serial killer
British psycho-thriller that is a little too laidback to work but does eventually put some effective twists on its audience
Sequel to Basic Instinct made fourteen years later. Sharon Stone vamps her way across the screen but the heated sexuality of the original has been watered down to a lukewarm whimper
Routine psycho-thriller where Mimi Rogers’ home is invaded by psycho babysitter David Orth
A British thriller Eddie Redmayne stars in a about a mystery in a boys boarding school involving murder and secrets from history leading to Knights Templar bloodlines
Quite good British tv mini-series psycho-thriller in which calculating Hermione Norris sneaks her way in and takes over the home of Julie Graham stealing her husband and gaslighting her
A sequel to The Glass House, this time with different cast or orphaned kids and different evil step-parents. This has the bland feel of a tv movie
Disappointing remake of Brian De Palma’s 1973 Siamese twins psycho-thriller that changes many elements and crucially lacks De Palma’s stylistic showmanship
British tv mini-series reminiscent of And Soon the Darkness about an English couple who have their children abducted by sinister strangers while holidaying in France. From the director of Ginger Snaps
A variant on the sinister child’s invisible companion theme. A fine cast has been assembled but the film goes and kills itself with a lame twist ending
Smart and intelligent slasher film in which a campus game among students turns deadly as it appears that a killer whose identity they made up may be eliminating their numbers for real
Tightly wound British tv thriller where Jemma Redgrave has a big secret that her ex is a jailed serial killer and she now cannot be certain if her son or fiance is responsible for a murder
Creepy UK tv mini-series with David Tennant as a psycho boyfriend obsessed with Kate Ashfield
Strong and effective UK tv thriller where Stephen Tompkinson becomes obsessed with the girlfriend who went missing years earlier after he thinks he sees her again
A disappointingly tame giallo thriller from Dario Argento about a poker-playing serial killer. Disappointingly, Argento has cut back on all his customary extravagantly arty and sadistic murder set-pieces
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
John Cusack leads a star cast line-up in what appears to be a slasher where a group of people gathered at a motel are being killed by someone among their number. Big conceptual twists then ensue
Oddball psycho-thriller from low-budget director Ron Ford about a series of killings and games of suspicion occurring in and around an off-season bed and breakfast
British tv movie variant on Fatal Attraction where a woman is stalked by her ex-husband Peter Davison
Thriller where Sylvester Stallone is a detective who goes into alcoholic rehab after his wife is killed by a serial killer only to realise that the killer is posing as one of the attendees
Psycho-thriller that should have gotten better notice than it did. Katie Holmes plays an A-student at an Ivy League college who is stalked by a missing ex. Slick and coolly written, before arriving at an effective twist ending
Christopher Nolan’s second film, an English-language remake of a Norwegian thriller. The action is relocated to Alaska and gets the addition of Robin Williams as a serial killer but is far less effective than the original
Brian De Palma makes a return to the classic psycho-thrillers where he made his name, shouting virtuoso directorial flourish from the rafters and pulling off an amazingly contrived plot
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
Teens on a road trip play a practical joke using an old CB radio but prank a psychopathic truck driver. A film where director John Dahl delivers the goods with considerable style
Taut, well-scripted psycho-thriller with William R. Moses as a man involved in the hunt for money appropriated by his late father
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
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
Psycho-thriller with Erika Eleniak and Monika Schnarre trapped in a snowbound cabin
A modest and reasonably effective psycho-thriller about a brother and sister who are adopted after the death of their parents only to find their step-parents have sinister intent
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
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
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 psycho-thriller featuring Bo Derek as an agoraphobic wife dealing with the shock of seeing her husband murdered only to then find that his body has disappeared
Psycho-thriller with Shannon Sturges as a woman who marries Perry King with the intent of destroying his life
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
An erotic thriller where detective Shannon Tweed must go undercover as a call girl to find a killer eliminating girls at the agency. A blatant copy of Basic Instinct
A unique thriller in which therapist Megan Gallagher becomes obsessed with blind patient Brad Johnson and keeps sneaking into his house, he unaware she is there. The film proceeds to place some fine twists on this
One of the better copies of Basic Instinct with detective Ellen Barkin being tempted as she investigates a serial killer who is targeting women who were involved with a lesbian call girl
Okay psycho-thriller with Maxwell Caulfield as the tenant who moves into Linda Purl’s sleepout with the intention of taking revenge against her
Modest psycho-thriller with Tracy Nelson as a psychopathic babysitter who kills all in the way to romancing her employer
Excellent psycho-thriller in which family man William R. Moses has his life taken over by an evil twin. Filled with a series of gripping unexpected twists and tensions
This is sold with the appealing idea of someone slaughtering their way through a bitchy teen clique. However, the film on show is far tamer than anything that it is promises to be
French psycho-thriller where Sergi Lopez gives an unnervingly charming performance as a psychopathic schoolfriend who inserts himself into Laurent Lucas’s life
Psycho-thriller with Andrea Roth as a woman who enviegles herself into a household with malevolent intent
Inferior sequel to the modest Devil in the Flesh which had Rose McGowan as a psychopathic schoolgirl. Recast with Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, this is now a routine slasher effort
Reasonable psycho-thriller where landlord Lindsay Crouse takes on increasingly deranged tenant Zoe McClellan
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
Psycho-thriller in which Daphne Zuniga is a woman accused of the murder of her psychiatrist and may or may not have been faking her mental illness
A passable psycho-sexual thriller that copies Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct with Andrea Roth caught between two men, one of who seems to be stalking her
A psycho-thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction with Kari Wuhrer stalking best friend Farrah Forke insisting they are meant to be together as a lesbian couple