About the Thriller Genre

1. The Thriller Genre

2. Generic Conventions
A film genre is defined by it’s codes and conventions and these must be present to make
a film a genre film but should involves some aspect of innovation, subversion and/or
inflection (otherwise it becomes a formula film)
• Mise-en-scene
• Setting
• Visual style
• Themes
• Ideology
• Stars
• Character-types
• Narratives
• Iconology
• Cinematography
• Special effects
• Sound/music

3. What is a Thriller?
• Uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements
• Includes many sub-genres;
-Mystery
-Crime
-Psychological
-Political
-Paranoid
• Atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder.
• Society is seen as dark, corrupt and dangerous.
• Literary devices like plot twists, red herrings and cliff hangers.

4. Thriller Methods and Ideas?
Crime:
• ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings
Mystery:
• Investigations, ‘whodunnit technique’
Psychological:
• Mind games, psychological themes, stalking, confinement,
deathtraps, horror of personality, obsession

5. Narrative Techniques
• Plot twists and turns
• Multiple lines of action
• Flashbacks
• Narrative retardation
• Red herrings
• Mis direction
• Deadlines
• Principle of concealment
• Chases/pursuits
• Making the audience work

6. Thriller Characters?
Criminals, Stalkers, Assassins, Psychotic individuals,
escaped convicts
Menaced women, innocent victims, private eyes,
world weary people
Cops, people involved in twisted relationships
Characters are often not back or white (bad or
good), grey is dominant!

7. Thriller Films?
• Inception
• Fight Club
• Psycho
• Silence of the Lambs
• Memento
• Dark Knight
• The Shining
• The Departed
• The Prestige
• Blade Runner
• Seven
• Donnie Darko
• The Village
• Panic Room
• The Sixth Sense
• Zodiac
• Reservoir Dogs
• Bourne Identity
• North by Northwest
• The Usual Suspects
• Shutter Island
• Taken

8. Thriller Directors?
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Brian de Palma
• Stanley Kubrick
• David Fincher
• Orson Welles
• Roman Polaski
• Ridley Scott
• M Night Shyamalan
• Steven Speilberg
• Quentin Tarantino
• Christopher Nolan
• Tony Scott
• John Carpenter
• David Cronenberg
• Jonathan Demme

9. Techniques
• Use of tracking
• POV
• ECU/Cus
• Reveals (track in/ zoom in)
• Dramatic angles
• Eerie, tense music
• Off screen sounds
• Low Key lighting
• Chiaroscuro
• Strong directional light
• Over exposed or colour
manipulation
• Fast paced editing, especially
for chase scenes
• Jump cuts
• Parallel editing
• Obtrusive editing
• Silence
• Exaggerated sound
• Disorientation of space/time