Friday, February 8, 2013

Richard Matheson - The Master of Psychological Suspense


Richard Matheson is one more great author famous for his  science, horror, fantasy fictions and was called "the author who influenced me most as a writer" by King. Both of them "casually integrate characters' thoughts into the third person narration". Matheson is typically of fantasy, horror, or science fiction.

A recent film - revised by one of Matheson's novel is "I am Legend". The story tells about the last human in the world who confronts with other variant species. As the only man in the world, the loneliness and hopelessness of him can be passed on to readers when they imagine how hard it is to be that particular hero. For the loneliness and hopelessness are feelings people share a lot. We see again for horror fiction, to grasp weakness of human is a good method.

It is not hard to find that strange or unbelievable things are the common point of these kinds of works. People are always curious about the unordinary things. Though these works have many elements in common in the field of suspense, they have their own futures. For Stephen King, there is only one goal to achieve, which is to frighten readers. The more scared readers are, the more successful he is. Suspense he used is not only to attract people, but also to scare people. Fear is his final aim.
To frighten people is also the aim of this man. But the man mainly uses another form to achieve his aim, in the form of film. He is the "master of psychological suspense" in the field of film: Alfred Hitchcock, a man films the fears of people. He is a film master to give fears to people as gifts all his life.
The master of psychological distinguishes shock and suspense. Shock can make people have a start, but suspense can leave people in a state of suspicious and anxiety. The latter is the final goal of all horror fictions or films. He believes the key to create suspense is to arouse audiences' curiosities and to let them know what happen but not inform them the reason or what will happen. Sometimes films look like the conspire between the director and audiences, people who do not know what happen are the leading roles.





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