A thriller aims to thrill audiences by using narratives involving kidnappings, murders, or other puzzles that characters must solve. Camera techniques like tracking shots set the scene while close-ups build tension. Common thriller themes include crime, mystery, psychological manipulation, paranoia, and espionage. Locations are often cities or exotic places that set the mood, while characters usually include a protagonist, antagonist, detective, and femme fatale. Mise-en-scene elements like low-key lighting, eerie music, trench coats, and props build atmosphere and suspense.

1. What makes a thriller a thriller?

2. Narrative
A thriller’s purpose is to thrill the audience
This is achieved by using thriller narratives:
● A kidnapping with a distressed family trying to save the kidnappee
● A murder so intricate and devious that its near impossible to solve the case
The common occurring base of a thriller is an event that causes a negative
effect and this poses a problem/puzzle and someone needs to fix/solve it.

3. Camera
Camera angles and shots are one of the main building blocks of a thriller. There
are many different types of shot used in thriller films.
Tracking and pan shots tend to be used during the start of the film showing the
audience the setting.
The close-up shots are used during tense or action scenes to show particular
detail (e.g. how scare a character is).
Over the shoulder shots are used to add perspective to a conversation and to
draw emphasis to the 180 . They also hold the position of power the same.

4. Themes
There are 5 main types of thriller film:
Crime thriller - In a crime thriller the common themes are ransoms, captivities,
heists, revenge and kidnappings.
Mystery thriller - These mainly just have an investigation theme and use the
whodunit technique.
Psychological thrillers are essentially mind games - They often contain
obsession, horror-of-personality, stalking, confinement and death traps.
Paranoid thrillers - these contain fringe theories, false accusations and of
course paranoia
Spy thrillers - Spy thrillers are very common and often contain: A threat to a
large establishment, spies (of course), espionage, conspiracies, assassins and
surveillance.

5. Settings/location
Thrillers are most often set in suburbs or cities because these two places have
good and bad places in them but both can be seen to be the opposite as well.
Thrillers are also sometimes set in more obscure or exotic places such as:
Foreign cities, Deserts, Polar regions, and sometimes even out at sea or in the
ocean.
The location is very important because it sets the mood and general feel of the
whole film.

6. Characters
In thrillers there tends to be a few stock characters that you will see in most thriller films.
These are:
● Femme fatale - the female character that will ultimately be the end of the hero
● Detective/law enforcement - as most thrillers involve finding a criminal and solving
some sort of case these are often in thriller films
● The protagonist - often the hero of the story this is the person who faces death,
either their own death or someone close to them
● The antagonist - This is the criminal or bad guy in the film, they will often battle the
protagonist
In thriller films each individual will often be tested in their morality to see how strong it is,
this gives the audience an idea of what the odds of success for the protagonist.

7. Mise en scene
Mise en scene is everything you see on set or in the frame and it is split up in to
a few categories:
Lighting and colours - Thriller lighting tends to be low key lighting to fear or tension,
black and white adds to the shadow created by low key lighting.
Sound - Most often starting with slow pace eerie music to set the countdown for the film
and build suspense.
Costume/make-up - The detective will often be wearing a large trench coat in thrillers
and the femme fatale is quite often pretty with tight clothing, less make-up can show
normality and heavy make-up may draw attention to their abnormality.
Props - Handguns are fairly standard in a thriller film as there is normally a stand off with
the hero and the villain. Also Mystery objects that contain or hold something that the
audience never see for example a briefcase or sometimes there is a personal item
cherished by the hero like a gift from a deceased loved one.