In a post on CrimeReads, author Nicci French – a pseudonym for the writing partnership of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French – say that the best psychological thrillers start close to home.
“The fears explored in the psychological thriller are more intimate, more domestic,” they write, noting that many of the early writers of this genre were women. “In certain ways, the psychological thriller, with its everyday fears, is closer to the romcom than it is to the police procedural or the techno-thriller.” In fact, the premise of many Hollywood romcoms could be used for either romantic comedies or crime thrillers, depending on how dark the turn. “In the 1995 movie, While You Were Sleeping, Sandra Bullock falls in love with a man in a coma and pretends to be his girlfriend. And then falls in love with the man’s brother. Is this a romcom or a dark psychological thriller?” they ask. “It depends what happens when the man wakes up.”
