Music is a crucial element in thriller films that helps build suspense, tension, and fear. It allows audiences to anticipate jump scares and rising tension. Effective music can improve scenes, as demonstrated in the films Shutter Island, The Sixth Sense, and The Woman in Black. For the author's own thriller film "The Hit," music will be used to gradually increase tension as an assassin prepares to take a shot, keeping audiences gripped as they wonder if agents can stop him in time.

1. Music In Thrillers
By Joe Cuthbert

2. Why is Music Important?
Music is a crucial factor that must be taken into consideration when producing
thriller film. It helps to build suspense, tension and overall fear in the scene. Without
music the audience may find it harder to prepare for any jump scares or recognise
gradual tension growing. Due to this every thriller film in today's modern industry will
always have focus on the music they are using. Furthermore to make our film more
effective and a higher quality we will also use music in our thriller opening.
Here are some very good examples of where a thriller film has used music to improve
a certain scene...

3. Example one: Shutter Island
One very good example of a thriller film that uses tense music is Shutter
Island. The 2010 blockbuster uses music throughout to build tension and fear.
In this particular case the scene uses music to build up to distrissing image
almost matching the characters emotion and heartbeat. The music used is
called “the nature of daylight”. It is a gradual fast and sharp piece, so fits the
scene perfectly.
Watch the clip below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmmJsgfNSIM

4. Example two: The Sixth Sense
This next example is a perfect example of how sound can be
used to build tension and fear in the audience. It from the 1999
Drama/Thriller movie Sixth Sense. It uses music with multiple
other factors (such as lighting) to produce a suspenseful scene
effectively.
Watch the clip below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRAjzK75M0U

5. Example Three: The Women In
Black
This next clip is from the Thriller/Horror film “The Women In Black”. This
ending of the scene manages to build suspense and capture the fear of the
scene all through the use of music. The main actor “Daniel Radcliff” appears
to be extremely frightened and the music effectively mirrors this emotion
making it a good use of sound in a thriller
Watch the clip below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMMkc-LlOn8

6. Our Thriller: “The Hit”
• Our own thriller will defiantly need to use effective music in
order to build tension in our opening. Our scene must have
tension otherwise the plot will be less attractive to an
audience. We will use music that will start slow and gradually
become faster as the assassin is about to take the shot. This
will have the audience struck with suspense of whether or not
the agents are going to stop him in time. Through this use of
music our opening will be tense and draw the audience in.