Metaphysical Thriller as a Genre?

Higgins · Sep 5, 2006

I'm thinking that's really got to be more like Sci Fi or Horror than a thriller.

I'm just trying to imagine something metaphysically suspenseful or thrilling.

As in what would follow the hook:

Skeeter doesn't know that Neoplatonism has a few problems with
basic epistemology and what he doesn't know is likely to make him
wonder why he can't find a clue about his neighbor's clear preference for
blue plastic sheeting for a week or two.

I'm puzzled as to how this genre would work.

ChaosTitan · Sep 5, 2006

yanallefish · Sep 5, 2006

Let's see, a metaphysical thriller: Zen Buddhist trying to logically explain murder? Hm. The Atoms of a Serial Killer - wherein a person's own DNA is contacted by someone else's DNA to try and make him change his evil ways? I give up.

dclary · Sep 5, 2006

I would consider Constantine (the film, not the emperor) to be a metaphysical thriller.

Oddsocks · Sep 6, 2006

I absolutely think the genre could work. There are a lot of things in philosophy that are really worth thinking about, and metaphysical themes can be a great basis for a plot. And, if you're dealing with science fiction/fantasy set in another world, you get to define the metaphysical truths of that world.

Higgins · Sep 6, 2006

So its not horror

dclary said:
I would consider Constantine (the film, not the emperor) to be a metaphysical thriller.

So its like a thriller but part of the mystery is in another "dimension" or an underworld or hell or heaven or something.

To redo the hook-defines-the-genre approach:

When Publius Naso "Skeeter" Mercantor finds his neighbor prefers blue plastic sheeting because it allows creatures from "Dimension X" to leave trinkets of gratitude, his problems are just beginning.

dclary · Sep 6, 2006

Exactly. I interpret metaphysical to mean exactly that: Something beyond the scope of our current physics, which usually extends to the occult or deeply religious (or both).

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 6, 2006

Explain the difference between metaphysics and paranormal, because isn't there already a paranormal thriller genre? Isn't that what a lot of urban fantasies are?

Vomaxx · Sep 6, 2006

From the first paragraph of Swing Out, Sweet Chariot by S.J. Perelman:

... Spindrift, a rather advanced quarterly review in which I had been following an exciting serial called "Mysticism in the Rationalist Cosmogony, or John Dewey Rides Again." In the previous number, the cattle rustlers (post-Hegelian dogma) had trapped Professor Dewey in an abandoned mineshaft (Jamesian pragmatism) and had ignited a fuse leading to a keg of dynamite (neo-Newtonian empiricism). Naturally, I was simmering with impatience to learn how the Morningside Kid would escape from this fix...

Metaphysical Thriller as a Genre?

Higgins

ChaosTitan

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yanallefish

dclary

Unabashed Mercenary

Oddsocks

Higgins

dclary

Unabashed Mercenary

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

Vomaxx