Shutter Island uses common thriller conventions to create tension and unease. Narrow corridors and dark spaces make the protagonist feel trapped in the asylum. Non-diegetic sounds, like dripping water and screams, increase tension as the protagonist searches a cell block alone with only a torch. A key plot point questions the protagonist's own identity, revealing he may be a patient imagining his true identity. These techniques immerse viewers in the protagonist's plight and uncertainty.

1. Shutter Island analysis
Shutter Island like most thrillers uses lots of small corridors, dark spaces and
steep narrow space, as shown in the image below, to create the feeling of
entrapment as the audience knows that if something happens to the character
that is there. Given the context of the film and where the character is (a mental
hospital in this case) it enhances the feeling of helplessness or the idea that
something could come around the corner and grab the protagonist unknowingly.
The film also deals with the theme of identity as throughout the film we are led
to believe the U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is looking for an escaped patient with
the certainty that he is who he is. However at the end we learn that the is in fact a
patient at this facility and that he is mentally deranged and that he has created
new identity to try and absolve himself from the guilt that he murdered his wife.
This is something that the audience feels as they have been following tis
character from the beginning and learning about who he is, and when they find
out that he is insane and has created this whole life for himself they feel both
unsure if he is being told the truth by these doctors, as they have been portrayed
in very suspicious ways throughout the film, or uncertain as to how he could
have gotten to this point.
Another very important convention in thriller films is non-diegetic sounds that
help to increase the tension in the scene. Shutter Island uses this when the
protagonist is making his way through a cell block after a storm.

2. Through this scene there is a absence of light which leads to him using a torch to
find his way around, as seen above, and there is a constant dripping a water from
all around him that echo’s through the thin empty halls, with the screams of
insane patients being heard in the distance to create fear in both the protagonist
and the audience as there is the possibility that anything could grab the
protagonist from behind or try to attack him when he has no way out.
Mise-en scene is very powerful
in establishing the conventions
of the genre that the film is
intended to be. This shot is
intended to make the audience
feel isolated the way that the
sea expands past the horizon,
and the lone lighthouse that
seems to be slightly rundown as
if it has not been used for an
extended period of time.
The dark knight
There are themes of identity throughout the film both with the antagonist and
protagonist. Batman is being challenged by the joker as he tries to get Batman to
show everyone that he is the same as he is by setting a number of challenges to
Batman that will attempt to get him to break his rule that he will never kill. This
ends up in one of batman’s close friends dying and makes him question who he is
and if he really is making all that much of a difference if people will still have to
pay the price because he can’t go the distance and take one life that may save
others. There is also the struggle that the audience goes through to try and
realise who the Joker is and why he is doing what he is doing. There are two
different points in the film that the Joker gives an account of how he got his
scars; however both of these stories are different making the audience question
who is, which keeps him as an unknown character with no attachment to the real
world.

3. One of the most famous moments in the film would be the interrogation between
batman and the Joker. It is set in a small room that at first is very dark showing a
thriller convention there. Also when the lights are switched on and the joker
starts to get attacked there is a feeling of no escape for him as the door has been
wedged shut and he is hopeless against his advisory.
Nearing the end of the film there is a scene that has low key lighting inn it as
well as other conventions, the most noticeable of them would be the changing
perspectives of the characters, this is when the joker is held upside down by a
piece of rope while Batman stands in front of him talking to him. It gives the
audience a sense of how opposing these two people are, one f them has his feet
planted firmly on the ground and the other is literally hanging upside down as to
reflect his entire outlook on life, always trying to mess things up and turn society
on its head.
Inception
Psychological puts elements that are related to the mind or processes of
the mind but they are mental rather than physical in nature. The thriller genre
generally focuses on the plot over the characters and thus emphasizes intense,
physical action over the character's psyche. This film being almost entirely based
in other people’s dreams corroborates this convention. The suspense from this
film comes when two or more characters are trying to outwit each other. For the
main points of this film it would be when the character Cobb is trying to fool the
psyche of the character who’s dream they have gone into which creates suspense
for the audience as they will not know if the man will realise that it is a dream
that he is in.
This film has a common form of the heist film - the one last big job. In it, a team of
criminals are gathered together for a final mission that will make their fortunes
and take them away from a life of crime forever. Usually there is an added risk
combined with the promise of an ideal life once the job is done provide for a
natural element of suspense. Which further pulls in the audience as they will
want the lead character to succeed and get back to the life that he had lost
before?
The use of non-diegetic speech in this film is another convention of thriller films.
Through this it creates fear that there will be something else in the dark that the
protagonist can’t see giving the sense of helplessness and vulnerability. This fim

4. uses it in a very smart way as they hear things that happen to their sleeping
bodies while they are in a dream. Through this the audience is unaware to what
could be going on to cause these noises and because the person is asleep it
makes them seem helpless to do anything about it.