Thrillers are fast-paced films that use suspense, excitement, and anticipation. Directors employ techniques like plot twists and cliffhangers to create suspense. Thrillers usually feature a protagonist going up against an antagonist, such as spies, criminals, or psychotic characters. Iconography like guns, cars, and low lighting help identify the thriller genre. Common thriller themes involve mental illness, crime, terrorism, and relationships gone wrong. Sound and music are used to build tension and heighten suspense.

1. By Ashufta Shah

2. A thriller film is a popular genre of film that
uses suspense, excitement and anticipation
as their main elements. Thrillers are usually
fast paced, adrenaline pumping and action
packed films. There are many subgenres and
hybrids of thrillers, such as psychological,
supernatural, crime and police thrillers.

3. Directors use a variety of different cinematic
techniques in order to create
suspense, excitement and anticipation in
thrillers, such as cliff-hangers, plot
twists, dream
sequences, enigmas, flashbacks and a nonlinear narrative. The mood of thrillers is
usually bleak and dramatic.

4. There are usually a variety of characters in
thrillers, there is usually a protagonist and a
antagonist who mostly likely is defeated in
the climax of the film. The characters in
thrillers are usually:
spies, convicts, criminals, detectives, policema
n, characters with ‘dark pasts’ or a
‘secret’, psychotic characters, drug dealers and
terrorists.

5. There is a select iconography that is often
associated with thrillers. Iconography enables
the audience to recognize the particular
genre they are watching. This is often: low
key lightning, weapons (guns, knifes
etc), cars, realistic settings and fast paced
editing, sharp cuts, shadow lighting and
montages.

6. There are many different themes of thrillers
such as: mental illness, murder
plans, kidnap, terrorism, political
conspiracy, religion, crime, supernatural, relati
onships gone wrong and spies. Thrillers are
usually set in dark isolated areas, urban
settings, busy suburbs.

7. Sound is used to great effect in thriller
movies, whether it be in a diegectic or nondiegectic form. Music is often used to build
the pace and tension or used to punctuate
the action. Instrumental music, that contains
instruments such as piano’s or violin’s, are
often used to heighten the suspense.