Psychological Thrillers Analysis

"A dangerously charming, intensely obsessive young man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by."

Netflix's new show YOU is one of my favorite shows based on a book, and the idea of doing an intro similar to this show is very exciting, in my last blog post, I went into the details a little bit but now I'm going to go into more depth!

This show came out in September of 2018 and it follows Joe Goldberg, Penn Badgley, as he literally follows all his love interests secretly. He is the typical stalker that tries to get his love interests to fall for him "accidentally". He presents himself as the perfect guy and the perfect boyfriend while finding out everything possible about the woman he loves and removing anyone that gets in his way.

He is the typical stalker and this show takes a different approach and makes him the main character rather than the victim which leads to the audience actually sympathizing with him even though we all know what he is doing is terrible and wrong. He goes to every extent possible, even killing his enemies or anyone that is a threat to his lover. 

Joe is a charming man that presents himself as unthreatening and kind and this makes people care more about him. We hear his inner thoughts and feelings and sympathize with what he's feeling and the way he rationalizes all his decisions. The typical antagonist in a psychological thriller is driven by obsession and violence and has an emphasis on internal tension and conflict. this perfectly describes Joe, he is obsessed with the women he loves and he is aggressive and violent when he feels that his potential relationships are being harmed. his inner conflict comes from when he knows that he is doing something wrong and messed up in every way but he rationalizes it by saying that he is being "forced" to do this by the women and his love for them. Psychological thrillers have the core mystery being highlighted by the workings of a disturbed mind and this character does that perfectly.

In our intro, we might have to introduce a character that is disturbed, and having the inner monologue present could be a way to clearly show what is going on in the character's mind. This could also be done through the mise-en-scene of the show. 

Joe's costuming is very simple and his signature outfit always includes a cap. The cap is used to signify the moment when he is stalking and is controversial in terms of morals. The moment that the cap goes on, the audience is aware that something dark is going to happen. In our intro, we could create something that is similar to the cap and show our audience that the thrill of something is going on.