Thriller- genre research

Genre research

Thriller film - A thriller film is a film text which integrates elements of suspense, tension and excitement as its primary elements and themes.

The thriller genre also as lots of sub-genres and thriller hybrids, such as...

• Crime-thriller
  

• Conspiricy-thriller

• Disaster-thriller
  

These are just a few of the many sub-genres of thriller.

As a thrillers key elements are suspense, tension and excitement, these are what the film needs to achieve in conveying to its audience. 

Thriller films convey these conventions to the audience using all types of media language. One of them is narrative. A thriller's narrative does not follow Todorov's theory exactly, instead of starting in a state of equilibrium at stage 1. A thriller film would generally start with an opening sequence that is a cut of the film in the future, at around stage 2/3 where the disturbance in the equilibrium has been recognised, and will then cut back to stage 1. This helps to create the suspense and excitement needed to create an essential thriller, also tension is helped to develop wit this technique.

This is used in thriller's, such as, 'The Butterfly effect', 'Limitless' and 'Flight Plan'.

(generic) Thriller narrative

Also in thrillers, use of titles are often used to create and effect of instability and suspense, for example, the 'Limitless' title sequence creates a mood of suspense as the continuous zoom leaves the audience glued to the screen and waiting for the zoom to stop. And similarly on 'se7en', the titles are used in such a way as to make the viewer feel in-stable and insecure due to the etched text and dark close ups that reveal nothing and make little sense.

A thriller needs to achieve certain effects on it's audience. To begin, the start of a thriller must retain as much information as possible whilst keeping the audience interested. It does this by changing the generic narrative in order to snare the audience's interest and appeals to human nature by triggering the audience's curiosity and keeps them asking questions.

Secondly, a thriller will, generically, add a sense of confusion for the audience to contemplate. This is again created by the use of narrative, but also can be created via the use of titles. For example, the title sequence to the film se7en (below) are created in such a way that the audience are kept guessing, purely by the titles. The use of very short, limited detail shots leaves no execs of information for the audience and the use of etched writing gives a sense of insecurity and lack of detail tot he audience, this is exactly what a generic thriller (especially phycological-thriller) aims to achieve.

Lastly, thrillers tend to create a sense of isolation by introduce one or two characters in a start sequence and secluding one character from everyone else. For example in 'Flight plan' the single female character is shown to be isolated. Also, these characters are often introduced in empty public, usually thriving places, at night. This adds to the outcast feel that generic thrillers aim to connote to their audiences. Suspense is also an integral convention of the broad thriller genre.

Historically, thrillers date back to the 17th century when 'The little red riding hood' was written. Although we see it as a nursery rhyme, it is really one of the earliest known phycological thrillers. Thriller in film started to appear in the 1920's when films, such as, the lodger which was a silent film based largely on suspense to keep its audience enthralled in the film. From there, the thriller genre has grown to be one of the broadest genres as it has many sub-genres and hybrids.

Lastly, media language conventions of genre, such as, stark lighting is used to create moods and connote more meaning to the audience. Stark lighting is used ti create a chiaroscuro effect on the film and connote a lack of detain and vagueness 

to the audience. Other features such as costume can too be 

used to create a very vague feel by giving away as little detail 

as possible about the character.