Thriller & Sub Genre

Thriller

Thriller is a genre used within media texts to create suspense, excitement and tension. These are the types of films that would “keep you on the edge of your seat”.

The way thrillers are put together work by the plot developing until reaching a climax. This will also normally see the leading protagonists found in a life-threatening situation or trap. It is also common that they are “thrown” into the plot unknowingly or unexpectedly. Another frequent convention found in thriller is where the plot is based on set deadlines and having to work quickly to meet them.

Typically the male characters will be found as stereotypical “tough” characters such as policemen or secret agents, such as James Bond or Jason Bourne. Women are also normally displayed with the usual stereotypical rules being weak and reliant on the males.

Filmmakers also take full advantage of features such as lighting. To create a more mysterious and dangerous atmosphere. Directors and Editors will often use dark and dingy lighting. Likewise they may opt to use bright lighting to create the opposite affect.



Sub Genres

Thrillers often if not always blur into types of sub genre. Before this even happens thrillers often have very close links to action and horror.

Crime Thrillers

In these, frequent plots include ransom, revenge and kidnappings. An example of this is Taken, 2008. In this film it starts in a normal American family (albeit the male protagonist, Liam Neeson, is a highly trained ex-CIA operative). However the plot thickens when his daughter is kidnapped and many dangerous and life threatening positions are presented.

Psychological Thrillers

Psychological Thrillers are where the filmmakers play “mind games” and often contain feature “obsession” in plots in order to keep the audience “on the edge of their seat”.

A recent and successful example of a psychological thriller is the 2010, Christopher Nolan hit, Inception. Here where “dream worlds” are the main theme it provokes many thoughts from the audience.
It could also be argued that the “Matrix trilogy” achieves this in a similar way, however this is where the discussion of sub and hybrid genres comes in with films like the “matrix” blurring the boundaries between many.


Horror/Thriller

One of the earliest and most successful thrillers was Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” 1960. Some would argue this to be a psychological thriller however it contains many conventions of the horror genre and although packaged to be a thriller could be argued it’s also a horror/thriller. In films like Psycho the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds are seen at their fullest effect. The iconic strings helps create suspense and also diegetic sounds like screams help authenticate the screen play.   



Overall thrillers are fast paced and exciting movies that often contain large portions of action and drama. It’s also seen that with all the sub and hybrid genres “thrillers” can vastly differ in aspects such as plot and mise-en-scene.