What is up With Psychological Thrillers?
I watched the movie Split the other night, and it dawned on me that every psychological thriller has two main components. A mental disordered man, and a women or multiple women that are his victims. In the psychological thriller movies Psycho, Split, American Psycho, and The Slience of The Lambs they are always partnered up with beautiful women. It is also, almost gaurenteed that there will be some sexual tension, and some nuditity will be displayed by the women, probably by force. This dynamic even carriers over to other mentally disordered men like in Dexter or Bates Motel. What is funny though, is why does this type of genre do so well in media?
It seems kind of odd because the things that happen in movie like this are always so uncomfortable, and unrelatable. In the movie Psycho, it is about Norman Bates who has multiple personalities, and one of the personalities is his mother. He has a weird obsession with sex, but the mother personality that he also has believes sex is dirty and sinfull. It is because of this reason that he kills women, the mother identity believes that all women are “hores”. In the movie Split, the main character Kevin has 23 different personality, and he kidnaps girls because he believes that they have never truly suffered before. One of the personalties named Denis has sexual ergs for young women, and battles with these through out the movie. American Psycho, has the same set up. He kills women mostly because he just likes killing, but has sex with the women first usually with their consent. He then kills them during or after sex. Lastly, in The Slience of The Lambs he does not kill young women, but he is partnered up with a young trainee who just graduated from the academy to interview the main character Hanibal Lector to gain insight into a serial killer that they are trying to catch called “Buffalo Bill”.
I am just wondering why is this always the dynamic that is displayed on screen when it comes to mental disorders being associated with men and killing? Why does it always make for great entertainment? I think that audiences love this type of dynamic because of the big red button effect. Meaning, it feels like we are not suppose to watch what is going on because it makes us feel uncomfortable and a bit uneasy, but we can not help watching because at the same time it is fascinating and interesting. I feel like this is also the same exact reason why there are so many videos of people popping huge pimples and black heads.
