How tension is created in Thrillers

1. Homecoming
How tension is created
Ella Dunkley, Vova Solovyev, Anais Ridgeway

3. Narrative
• At the beginning of the piece the audience
learns that the character Ben has been left
home alone whilst his parents are on holiday.
• He has not answered his phone calls and has
left food lying around the house. This
immediately creates tension as the audience
suspect that something has gone wrong.
• At the end it is revealed that Bed has been
murdered.

4. Sound
• There is a black screen at the start of the thriller
to focus on the answer phone message.
• The use of chimes, distortion and EQ in the music
create a creepy atmosphere.
• Addition of a dark musical soundtrack going from
higher to lower escalates the tension.
• At the end of the piece there is a build up of
different orchestral instruments with reverb to
produce a climax.

5. Props
• Unopened letters
• Left out food
• Fridge open
• Dead flowers
• CD disks out of place
• Family photos

6. Camera
• The camera moves around the house at a slow
pace so that the audience can focus on the
different elements.
• It speeds up in the kitchen and then escalates up
the stairs so that the audience suspects that
something has happened up stairs.
• The camera finally slows in the bedroom to
create suspense and moves from Ben’s hand to
his face, and further to bird’s eye view. This
reveals what has happened.

7. Reveal
• Sound is at its climax with orchestral sounds
and dark musical soundtrack.
• Camera has slowed to create suspense.
• Movement of camera in reveal to rest on
bird’s eye view captures full attention.