Conventions of psychological thriller

Themes: 

• Reality - the main character usually tries to figure out what is actually real and what is not real in the narrative. 
• Mind - Human conscience,  personality, thoughts, memory, emotion. It is usually the location of the narrative where the main character often battles between minds to get an understanding or perception. 
• Death - the character either fears for the loss of life or have a fascination/interest in death.
• Perception - The characters view on whats happening, which is usually a misinterpretation or altered by other people or things happening in the narrative. 
• Identity - Characters are usually confused about who they are and doubt themselves. Usually discover who they are. 
• Purpose - an aim/goal to try and find out the reasons for their existence. 

http://www.slideshare.net/NicBunby/codes-and-conventions-of-a-psychological-thriller-7899940

Narrative: 

The film is usually in first person narrative located in the mind. .Common narrative devices used to facilitate the exploration of the characters' psyches are Back Story, first person narrative, and Stream Of Consciousness. 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychologicalThriller

Lighting:

Low level lighting is usually used to create shadows which create tension and fear for the audience.

Editing/Camera angles:

The pace of the editing is usually quick and fast with a lot of changes in the camera angles to increase the feelings of fear and shock in the audience. This is often used during important scenes and scenes of high significance. 

Music: 

The music used in both the titles and throughout the film is often eerie or creates high tension. Silence is typical and effective at creating fear and tension. 

Devices: 

• Flashbacks: Confuses the audience as it disorientates the time or shows the past so that the audience can see why the characters are the way that they are. 
• Black and white colouring: this is used to increase the effectiveness of the shadows to create fear and tension. 
• Small/claustrophobic spaces: shows entrapment of the mind, locations used such as houses, offices or planes.
• Font/colour of titles: may be wrote in a specific way to highlight and emphasise the films theme.

Characters:

Characters need to be well developed, there is typically a antagonist(bad guy) and a protagonist(good guy). 

Antagonist needs to have characteristics aren't very likeable but also likeable qualities so the audience can clearly see that he is the bad guy (dangerous) but manipulate them into empathising with them and typically the protagonist has very likeable qualities so that the audience can empathise with them. 

http://www.iankingsley.com/articles/007-psychological-thrillers.php

Iconography/Signs/Symbols:

• Knives - represent fear and death, used in 'Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock', used to keep the audience engaged. 
• Shadows - gives it a mysterious edge, common as they build up fear and tension within the audience.
• Small/claustrophobic/confined spaces - makes the audience also feel that they are trapped, feeling that they cant escape, leads to a start of a struggle for freedom. 
• Woods - create a sense of been lost, isolation, vulnerability. 
• Running water - often a symbol of death - draining life or often shows that the character is in danger (dripping).
• Street lamps - keep focus on protagonist, darkness surrounding them.
• Cities - bring the drama closer to them, sense of reality for the audience.