Thrillers are films that are made to excite audiences through tension and uncertainty. There are many types of thrillers including horror, sci-fi, crime and romantic comedy thrillers. Thrillers keep audiences on the edge of their seats by pursuing an intense goal and putting characters in impossible circumstances. Common thriller elements include action, hostage situations, criminals and psychotic characters. The filmmaker proposes an idea for their own thriller about a woman who is being stalked and followed by someone wearing a white chainsaw mask.

1. Thriller Presentation By Elektra Mavroskoufis

2. What is a thriller and what types are there? Thrillers are films that are made to give the audience a feeling of intense excitement, anticipation, tension, anxiety and uncertainty. Thrillers normally hold very similar characteristics and are very synonymous. Simply, thrillers could be described as films that relentlessly pursue a one-minded goal. They set out to keep the audience excited to find out what happens next and to make them think that the characters will never be able to escape impossible circumstances, keeping them ‘on the edge of their seats’. There are horror-thrillers, sci-fi thrillers, western thrillers, crime-caper thrillers and even romantic-comedy thrillers.

3. What could you expect from a thriller? Thrillers such as ‘Swordfish’, have loads of action moments where people are held hostage, blown up, police are made weak in the hands of the enemy to the point that the audience think that the antagonist will win. By the end usually they do not and by some miracle they are stopped from carrying out their evil plans. Common characters include convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, people involved in twisted relationships and world-weary men and women. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.

4. Sin City 2005 The Godfather 1972 The Silence of the Lambs 1991 These are three very famous thriller films in order of release. ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ was produced by Orion studios in 1991. This films takes the audience on a long journey of different emotions and almost every scene seems to leave the audience in suspense. The scenes use dark lighting almost making the plot seem darker and more wrong. There are very vivid images such as when Hannibal escapes and hangs a police officer on his cell, by his organs.

5. Why do people like thrillers? Thrillers are filled with suspense and tension. Thrillers often make the audience unsure or uneasy about the result of the film. This makes the audience want to know and want to see what will happen next. ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ is rated as an 18. Their target audience would have possibly been 18 to mid-30’s. At the time of release, the topics discussed had not really been shown to this detail, making it very exciting for the public.

6. Ideas for my thriller… My initial idea when thinking about my thriller, was playing on the fear of being followed. I have thought about doing point of view shots for the antagonist to add suspense. My idea was to have a woman stretching on a hill. Every few seconds, it swaps to a point of view shot of someone watching her with heavy breathing. As she slowly jogs down the hill, he keeps watching and following. At some point she hears something but when she looks, she sees nothing. She keeps hearing a slight sound of a chainsaw but keeps going looking back few times. At some point she looks around and she screams. It keeps flashing on the antagonists face who is wearing a white chainsaw mask similar to the one pictured. It flashes three times on this then the fourth and fifth times, blood splashes onto his mask. The end.