Thriller Research

Emma ThomasVarndean College

The term Thriller refers to the emotion ‘to be thrilled’. Its genre often depicts elements such as fast paced action, and suspense filled scenes, which leave the audience thrilled. It’s a broad genre that branches off into several different sub-genres however there are certain characteristics that exist in all thrillers.

A typical Thriller hero would be male – although occasional Thriller movies cast woman as the heroine, such as ‘Resident Evil’ or ‘The Terminator’ – they’d be brave, and unafraid to confront danger, often resulting in ‘getting the girl’. Most often they are ordinary people, who are lured into danger unwillingly which can be aspirational for the audience, as it could make them feel as though they can accomplish anything.

Thrillers often generate emotions such as suspense and excitement. The job of a Thriller is to keep the audience intrigued by using action scenes that are designed to literally thrill and entertain the audienceto a degree that leaves them wanting to watch more. On occasion, Thriller movies can

generate fear in the audience, which is an exhilarating experience and a good element of Thriller films which leave the audience hooked. Another emotion brought on by Thriller films can be joy. For the thrill seekers who indulge in the odd Thriller, a burst of excitement that is so powerful can overcome their sense of fear and allow them to simply enjoy the thrills of the movies. Thrillers are one of the rare genre’s that release various emotions into the audience, or at least more than average, which makes them a very good watch. Thrillers usually have a great deal of action, cinematic landscapes or cityscapes or interior "mindscapes." Thrillers are very dramatic even when they focus on someone's mind as in a Psychological

Thriller - like Hitchcock's ‘Psycho’. This plot line involves an office-working woman who is tired of her life so decides to put a little bit of adventure into it. In many Thrillers, the character willingly participates in theaction, or is forced to, to rewrite the wrong they have done, or to uncover mysteries – like ‘Silence of the Lambs’ or ‘Inception’. Most Thrillers have a dramatic twist to the ending which allows the audience to ask questions and resolve them in their heads, giving them a chance to feel one with the movie. Sometimes the twist results in the bad guy surviving or the good guy actually being the bad guy and that, as you can imagine, can be very exciting for the audience, and can often lead to a sequel.

In my opinion, I believe audiences love a good Thriller because they enjoy being thrilled. Thrillers inject a lot of emotions into the viewers and it can be a break from everyday life which may be tedious and unimaginative. Thrillers can be a form of escapism for some, and to be able to see someone on the screen doing things that most of the time aren’t humanly possible, could be the break from their usual mundane lives that they need. It could also be aspirational for the audience who may aspire to be like the heroes they see on the screen.

Thrillers often use a level of thrills (hence the name) to create the tension build up in the films. This can be seen as action shots, or could be seen as suspense scenes which leave the audience hooked and ‘thrilled’. Suspense is built mainly by use of camera angles and music. If the shot is showing the entire room, for instance if a door was in shot, the audience would immediately pick up on the fact that something was going to come through the door, leaving them excited and anticipating the moment when it does. Music and soundtrack plays a big part – you cant build suspense without eerie music, mainly caused by a dull hum which plays throughout the scene, or with plucking from violins which proves to be very popular. This can be seen in ‘Drag Me To Hell’ where the violins pluck whilst the character is walking towards the door we saw in the long shot, whilst a dull hum plays behind throughout the entire scene.

A second level used in Thriller films is the psychological aspect in movies. This provides the audience with the same thrills, but only create more anxiety and generate a more emotional response. This is effective in Thriller films (especially if you want the audience to be so frightened they leave their light on at night!) because the psychological experience is what pulls the audience into the movie, and really makes them feel as if they are watching something that is realistic, or as if they are witnessing the horror first class. This is shown in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and is used in the character of Hannibal Lector, an unusual man who we all love to hate because of his outstandingly intelligent brain, but because of his personality, we all fear him, and because of the things he gets up to, we are all affected psychologically, fearing he too will get to us.

In the opening scene to ‘Arlington Road’, we see an ordinary suburban road, with ordinary looking houses. The weather isn’t particularly bad; it actually looks like a nice day. We then see a boy staggering along the road; his face is really pale and his expression looks in shock. A man pulls up in a car behind him, before he spins the boy around and we find out his hand has been very badly burned. The thrill of this scene is brought on by the ordinary looking boy as we can tell there is something wrong before we actually see it. Thriller films often use ordinary objects in scenes to make it more thrilling. As the audience is subject to believe that in movies, everything is exaggerated and nothing is realistic, it is thrilling to see something happening to an ordinary person because it crosses the boundaries between the real and the fake, leading the audience to believe that the terrible thing that’s occurring (in this case a burned hand) can happen to anyone, even themselves.

Thriller’s tend to like to keep the audience guessing throughout the entire movie. They try to get the balance between to obvious and the oblivious apart – this is sometimes difficult, when the audience realises that the least obvious person will have done it, but also making it so the most obvious person didn’t do it. In the film ‘Devil’, there are five characters stuck in a lift. Because there is more than one person in the lift portraying different sides to themselves throughout the movie, it is hard to guess which one is the real culprit, and with them all dying at different moments in the lift, the surprise to find out the person that was murdering them was the old women was a shock because we had already seen her die. This is a good feature to the film because the audience would not suspect that she had done it, making her the most unlikely, which is a common feature in a lot of Thriller films – leaving the revelation to the outcome. This is also seen in ‘Sixth Sense’ where throughout the movie you, as the viewer, are led to believe that the little boy can see dead people and Bruce Willis’ character was helping him get through it, until right at the end of the movie, it is revealed that he is actually dead – a shock revelation that surprised everyone.

Thriller ‘s have been a popular demand for many years, one of the earliest being ‘Safety Last’, a comic created by Harold Lloyd in 1923. It featured an all-American boy performing dangerous stunts on the side of a skyscraper. One of the earliest Thriller films was ‘M’ in 1931 directed by Fritz Lang, a haunting an chilling film. Thriller films have become more sophisticated now, though the storylines remain relatively similar, the effects have become a lot better with the more technology we have to this day.

Sub-genres are important to Thriller films as they determine for the audience what to expect from what they are about to watch. The most common Thriller genres are:Action Thrillers - ‘Point Break’ (1991)Conspiracy Thrillers – ‘JFK’ (1991)Crime Thrillers – ‘Sin City’ (2005)Disaster Thrillers – ‘Cloverfield’ (2008)Psychological Thrillers – ‘Jacobs Ladder’ (1990)Spy Thrillers – ‘The Bourne Identity’ (2002)Supernatural Thrillers – ‘Carrie’ (1976)

Sir Alfred Hitchcock is considered one of the best English film makers/directors of Thriller films. He is the master of suspense; he is able to create such tension in his films that leave the audience hooked every single time. Hitchcock’s first Thriller film was called ‘The Lodger’ made in 1926. It was a silent film with a ‘Jack-the-ripper’ style character. His first sound film created was ‘Blackmail’ made in 1929, though it was also released as a silent film.Hitchcock’s films are very famous, though the most famous film he ever made is regarded as one of the best Thriller films ever made, with a scene that is used and remade by many different TV shows and movies as part of a comic aspect. This was of course ‘Psycho’ made in 1960. The shower scene is one of the most memorable scenes to this day, not only in Thriller films but in every genre, and it’s fame is well-deserved.

Orphan (2009) - Jaume Collet-SerraThe scene starts in white, and a blurred image of double doors slowly appears, and two figures walk through until the blur slowly changes and we can see it’s a man and a woman. The lighting is extremely bright and overpowering, making it feel like a dream. As the scene goes on, we find out the woman is pregnant and the woman and man are in a hospital. The woman is placed in a wheelchair and is wheeled to her room, all the while making friendly conversation with the nurse about the baby.The woman appears to be in pain, straining her voice and her face until she lifts her hands up and her fingers are covered in blood. An overhead shot then showed that she has been bleeding along the floor for a while, and the nurse isn’t bothered about it. Inside the hospital room, the nurse tells the woman that her baby is dead and the woman starts to panic. The feel then gets very sinister, as the nurses face never falls from a smile. They pull out loads of tool to get the baby out of her, saying it’s too late to use general anesthetic, all the while the woman is screaming in pain.Once the baby is finally out, it is handed to her in sheets covered in blood and dead as the nurse says “It’s a girl.” The woman then screams and we see her wake up in her bed, reassuring us that is was a nightmare.

In Thriller films there are two distinct kinds of characters; antagonists and protagonists. Antagonists are the bad guys; the criminals, the convicts, the serial killers…An antagonists identity is often hidden for the majority of the film, leaving the audience to aid for themselves and to work out who the bad guy is independently. In ‘Seven’, the antagonist in the story line is left unknown until the second half of the film, though we are already introduced to him earlier in the movie. This gives the audience the idea that, because we’ve already seen him in the movie, the murderer can’t possibly be him, which helps hide the identity of the murderer to make that all important surprise at the realisation. The antagonists are also, more often than not, highly intelligent, and seemingly invincible, leaving the audience feeling sympathy for the protagonists in the story. Protagonists are the innocent victims, and occasionally people with dark pasts like ex-cops, or family related issues, meaning that we as the audience can have an instant reaction towards the character and like him, so we don’t lose interest in his story. The protagonists in ‘Seven’ are Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman’s characters, because they each have something highly emotional and dark about their pasts. This is exploited by the antagonist at the crucial moment during the end scene, leaving the protagonist in a very dangerous and difficult situation. We instantly connect with the characters and take sides with them so that we too can feel like we want to capture the criminal and stop him from our living rooms.

As the audience, we enjoy watching the thrilling aspects of Thriller films; we enjoy the climactic scenes and the intense excitement as well as the suspense and high level of anticipation. We enjoy seeing the characters in dangerous situations and seeing things we wouldn’t want to see ourselves because we feel a somewhat comfort that we don’t have to see it ourselves. Scenes which make us anxious are generally dark scenes, where the characters are drawn into dark spaces, filled with shadows and low lighting. This is because we are afraid of what we cant see, and we generally cannot see in the dark. The darkness is the one place that can make anyone feel uneasy because it’s not that darkness itself, it’s who’s lurking inside it.