The Roots of Modern Thrillers

When one looks at modern thriller movies, especially those dealing with an insane antagonist, they all flow from the format originally conceived in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). The trademark of a crazy villain, usually wielding a knife, or a similar weapon was all started with Psycho. These films tended to operate on a semi-horror level, with brief action scenes, usually at the end, in which the psychotic killer is defeated. Play Misty for Me was among the first films to operate using this format, however it was followed by such films as Halloween, Death Proof, and The Silence of the Lambs. In these films, the psychotic villain always uses a knife, or an axe, or some other unconventional weapon. This displays a lack of rational thinking, for a gun is clearly a better weapon, and tells us that the villain enjoys his or her killings. Many thrillers and horror films continue to use these same techniques, even today.