Sunday, February 1, 2026

Research: Character types in thrillers

INTRO 

In movies, character types are very important due to the mental map that the audience will guide themselves. Without them, a plot is just a series of random events, having the problem of the movie not having a central message and disconnected scenes. They are important because they provide structure, emotional resonance, and clarity for the audience. 

 

Research

In thriller movies, especially psychological thrillers, characters are not usually heroes in the traditional sense. Instead, they are defined by their secrets, their traumas, and their proximity to danger. 




 

Some characters that are usually used in psychological thrillers include an unreliable narrator, innocent bystander, and the puppet master. All of these are character types that could be used for other genres of movies but are best in psychological thrillers.  

 

Unreliable narrator 

The role of this character is to tell us the point of view of the story; however, we cannot trust everything that the narrator tells usThe narrator might be telling us the wrong story on purpose or not; they might be lying or can have memory loss. On example of movie that does this is  Knives out Wake up dead man which starts with fathers Jud narration which can be misleading to the final plot twist, which at the end makes the audience that everything they have watched is false and just a mirror of what is really happening. 

 



The puppet master  

Unlike other genres where a typical villain uses a gun, the thriller antagonist uses manipulation to have other characters waste time and even controlling them to bring chaos. They are often highly intelligent, calm, and stay behind the scenes for most of the movie. They know the protagonist’s weaknesses and exploit them. A clear example is Saw X movie in which the character is a puppet; however, he controls his victims with psychological weapons like putting friends or family in danger. He makes them play dangerous games where they can die this being the whole plot of the movie, making them see the villain without him being in any action but in the shadows. 






Overview
Each genre has their valuable set of character types, in psychological thrillers character types serve as a psychological mirror, shifting the focus from physical conflict to the fragility of the human mind. I like knowing this because it would help my film by letting me know what type of character we want to use and how each character is going to contribute to building the guide for our film. 








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