Research for thriller into psychopaths and there role in film and thrillers.

I did some research into psychopaths and their detachment with there victims and found it really interesting that it is a big part of most psychopathic personas. Our psychopath in our thriller also has a huge detachment to his victim as he is just concentrated on his painting and doesn't show any emotion toward his victim and the gruesome activity he has committed on the victim. Similar to films such as Sweeney Todd when he is just concentrating on the business and money but also taking pleasure out of killing and being detached from the actual killing of a human life and the pain the victim has felt. In our thriller we wanted to make it very important that the psychopath would have no regard for the victims feelings therego the painting being the focal point of the psychopaths attention. The research i have done before and after the thriller shooting has been really interesting and helped me direct Tom (our psychopath) in the right direction for what we wanted him to do while playing the part. What i found really interesting was that Canadian psychologist and psychopath expert Dr. Robert D. Hare has codified a number of features in what he calls a Psychopathy Checklist of which lists some of the following characteristics: Lack of empathy, Lack of remorse or guilt, Impulsivity, Superficial charm, Shallow emotions, Grandiose, sense of self-worth, Irresponsibility, Manipulative behavior, Early behavioral problems and Detachment. After researching this i really wanted to incorporate a little of everything in the checklist (or most things) so we could really have the true sense of a psychopath themselves. Here are our some photograph examples of Psychopaths in thrillers and how they relate to our psychopath in our thriller opening sequence.

This is Arno Frisch. He played the role of a sadistic psychopath in Funny Games. The sadistic element to a psychopath is one that was key in our portrayal of a psychopath in our opening sequence as our psychopath obviously enjoys the pleasures out of murdering someone as the blood is very important to our psychopath and his art.

This is Christian Bale who plays Patrick Bateman. He is perhaps the most famous psychopath of all time but was he really a psychopath or someone with a bizarre form of psychosis and obviously is deeply disturbed. Thats what we also want anyone watching our thriller opening sequence to wonder so we actually based a lot of the detachment and care in appearance on Patrick too.

Lastly here is Anthony Hopkins who plays Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This is perhaps thought of as an odd choice as he is a cannibal but we really wanted to grasp on the intensity Anthony is portraying through his look at his vicitim through our psychopath too. We want our psychopath to look at the painting the way Anthony looks at his victims.