features of thriller genre

1. Genres Ideas
By James Johnson

2. Genre: Horror
 Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction
from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Horror films
often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears, and terror of the
unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of
an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into
the everyday world.
 Sub Genres:
 Within the majority of films, they do not only focus on one genre. Sub
genres are genres inside a main genre of the film. Examples of this are:
 Shaun Of The Dead; Comedy with a sub-genre of horror. We can see
how it has aspects of horror through the fact that it is a 15 rated film.
 Friends with Benefits; Romance film with a sub-genre of comedy.
 When thinking about ideas for my film, I decided to use horror as my
main genre with themes of thriller and action as my sub genres. I
believe these three genres go hand in hand and work very effectively
together.

3. Conventions of a horror film
 Dark scenes are always key. The use of motivated lighting, shadows
and other earry visuals is always key when lighting a scene.
 Without a good location a horror film will flop. Isolation is key, making
the audience feel like the character(s) are alone. For example; Alley
ways, run down houses, hotels & Insane Asylums.
 Point of view shots allow the audience to see through the characters
eyes, this adds more suspense to the film. A good example of this is
Paranormal Activity.
 Handheld shots can help disorientate the audience.
 Fast and loud non diegetic sound can add to making the audience jump
or feel scared.

4. Genre research
 Settings of a horror film:
 Within horror films, we see the use of many similar locations, examples
of these are:
 A haunted house
 Cabin in the woods
 Deserted cities/towns
 Neighbourhoods
 Forests
 Lighting
 Dark lighting is common within horror films; dark lighting adds suspense
to the film as it is the fear of the unknown. An example of this is the Blair
Witch Project; the majority of the film is set in a dark forest.

5. Genre research continued
 Props
 Scary make up e.g. The Exorcist
 Masks e.g. Scream
 Weapons e.g. guns/baseball bats/axes
 Costumes e.g. The Mummy.
 Characters
 Propp suggested in 1928 that in any story there are only ever a limited
number of character types, each of which had their own purpose
narrative:
 Hero – The central protagonist of the narrative who drives it forward and
has some kind of quest or mission to undertake in return for a reward.
Traditionally they are male however there have been cases where the
female is the hero.
 Villain – Seeks riches, glory and or/power, and also seeks to stop the
hero from succeeding in the quest or mission, while presenting a
genuine threat. They sometimes want the heroine for themselves. They
can be male e.g. Scar in Lion King.