This document provides a history of the mystery-thriller genre from the 1920s to present day. It notes that thrillers use tension, suspense and excitement, employing devices like red herrings and plot twists. Mystery-thrillers involve a violent situation and loss that prompts the protagonist to take action. Examples of influential mystery-thrillers from different decades are given, showing how the genre has evolved over time with advances in technology and an increasing focus on graphic violence and sadism in more recent films. Within our limited budget, the film will rely on acting and editing rather than special effects.

1. Mystery Thriller
THE HISTORY OF THE GENRE

2. THE CHOSEN GENRE
Our chosen genre for our movie is a mystery-thriller, however there is no
technical sub-genre for this, however thriller movies have aspects of mystery and
mystery movies have elements of thriller movies.

3. WHAT?
Thriller is a genre that uses tension, suspense and excitement as its three main
elements, they heavily play on the viewer's emotions such as anxiety, surprise and
terror.Devices such as ‘red-herrings’ ‘plot-twists’ and ‘cliffhangers’ are widely
used.
Mystery-Thriller is a hybrid genre, these usually have some sort of violent
situation and a big loss that usually causes the protagonist to take action.

4. THRILLERS IN THE 1920S AND THE 1930S
‘Assassination’ 1927. It is a German made silent thriller film directed by Richard
Oswald. It was based of the novel of the same name by Vicki Baum.
‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ 1938 This is another example of a British thriller film, it
was once again based off of the mystery/thriller novel ‘The Norwich Victims’

5. THRILLERS IN THE 1940S
‘Gaslight’ 1944 This is a psychological mystery/thriller film, directed by the
American director, George Cukor.
Films such as ‘The Spiral Staircase’ 1946, ‘The Lady From Shanghai’ 1948, and ‘Sorry,
Wrong Number’ 1948, revolved largely around murder mysteries.

6. THRILLERS IN THE 1950S
Some of Alfred Hitchcock’s films started to have colour, such as ‘Dial M for
Murder’ 1954 and ‘Catch a Thief’ 1955.
One of the most famous thrillers made was ‘Niagara’ 1953, it starred Marilyn
Monroe which boosted the popularity of it. Another famous thriller was ‘The
Night of the Hunter’ 1955.

7. THRILLERS IN THE 1960S
An example of one of the most famous thriller movies of all time was ‘Psycho’ in
1960 directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Another example of a famous thriller is ‘Wait
Until Dark.’ 1967 directed by Terence Young; it was about a victimised blind
women being harassed by a sadistic con-man.
An example of a hybrid movie was the romantic thriller
‘Charade’ 1963 ; it had a lot of plot twists which shocked the
audience.

8. THRILLERS IN THE 1970S AND THE 1980S
Within these years, there was one film known for its theoretical possibilities, ‘Play
Misty For Me’ 1971 - was about a fan who was deeply obsessed with their idol.
This was also the time that director Steven Spielberg became known for his film
‘Duel’ 1971 which followed the characters of a reckless truck driver and a
salesman.
In Brian De Palma’s films, he was known for killing off the main character,
switching perspectives, and they included themes of guilt, obsession and even
paranoia.

9. THRILLERS IN THE 1990S
Within this decade, thrillers were started to take on a more psychological route,
such as the film ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ 1999 and ‘Open Your Eyes’ 1997.
Thriller movies started to become even more popular as more and more people
wanted to see films like this, as they heavily played on emotions that films in the
genre of comedy and romance (for example) would not.

10. THRILLERS IN THE 2000S TO THE PRESENT DAY
Thrillers began to add more aspects from the horror genre such as
more sadistic violence, brutality, terror and body counts. The
2005 film ‘House of Wax’ for example, there are only two of the main
characters left alive. One of the characters die when a pole goes through her head, and another gets coated in hot
wax.
In the 2001 film ‘Jeepers Creepers’ became one of the most well
known horror movies of the decade due to its disturbing factors.
Nude corpses are seen with several body parts removed, these
can be quite disturbing and some of the deaths are violent and
graphic as ‘the Creeper’ cuts someone's head off and is seen ripping their tongue from
their mouth with his teeth.

11. Thriller films have changed over the decades, one of the reasons being that
technology has become much more advanced therefore the special effects look
better. This means that certain events can look much more interesting.
However, since we do not have a large budget (or any sort of budget) we are
rather limited on our special effects being of both visual and make-up. So we will
have to reply on the acting and the editing processes to make up for the lack of
special effects.