When a movie can make you feel something warm inside, it is a delightful experience. When a movie can make your skin crawl inside out, it's just ridiculously awesome...
Content:
Thriller films are movies that are made to induce adrenaline, exhilaration, suspense, and overbearing tension within its audience. Essentially, as stated in the name, the purpose is to provide thrills. Thrillers are set in relatively modern and nonfiction representations of the world. Conflicts within this genre usually arise from threatening situations, ranging from risky to violent matters of life and death. Characters can either overcome these problems or fail miserably. Thrillers also tend to combine with elements of other genres, such as crime, mystery, and action. Protagonists and other main characters tend to be unaware of the danger they present themselves in. Common character types are from participants of criminal activity (murder, robbery, stalking, etc.), complicated or twisted relationships, those who feel out of place or are small in society, the “average joe”/nobody, and those with mental illness or panic. On average, protagonists must overcome extreme obstacles either physically or mentally as the story and success seem unachievable. Antagonists in thrillers can be either be mysterious figures or metaphysical concepts challenging the protagonists.
Production Techniques:
Thrillers combine realist and formalist production techniques. Heavy use of shadows and low key lighting work together to create dark, ominous atmospheres on screen. Time manipulation through the use of flashbacks both disorients the audience and gives insight on characters in terms of motivations and important events from their past. Fast paced editing creates more intense moments in thrillers, with the additionally help of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound (for instance: glass shattering or unnerving and intense music). Modern thrillers reduce color saturation and tend to use color schemes of greens and oranges to produce a gritty look on their production. Certain scenes are presented in black and white to add a bigger emphasis on dramatization. Costume design is pragmatic and applies practical clothing to the characters in these films.
Institutional Conventions:
Thrillers are typically marketed through mysterious trailers. Trailers do not reveal much behind the plot, but attempt to rouse interest out of the targeted audience of thrill seekers. Ominous music and strange shot choices mix cohesively to illustrate an off-putting yet intriguing vibe from the film.
Film Sample #1: Nightcrawler
Nightcrawler is a modern example of a thriller the exemplifies the genre extensively. Jake Gyllenhaal plays as Lou Bloom, a nobody who is trying to make it in life through thievery. Once he discovers the stringer profession, he is on a power hungry path that eventually leads to him committing murder. As mentioned above, the techniques used are the application of criminal activity within the plot and a layer of mystery clouding over Lou. By questioning moral boundaries and having an extremely intriguing yet off putting “protagonist”, the audience is filled with suspense and are fearing what Lou will do next. Low key lighting and a gritty color scheme filled with oranges and greens are apparent throughout the film. Nightcrawler also has an intense soundtrack to compliment the tension felt throughout.
Film Sample #2: Vertigo
Other Examples of Thrillers:
Bibliography
“Thriller and Suspense Films.” Filmsite.Org, AMC Network Entertainment LLC, 2001, www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html. Accessed 9 Nov. 2019.
Blundell, Abbie. “Codes and Conventions of the Thriller Genre.” Prezi.Com, 24 Nov. 2015, prezi.com/m/_bkrwwzfisyh/codes-and-conventions-of-the-thriller-genre/. Accessed 9 Nov. 2019.
Dushullovci, Andi. “CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF THRILLER FILMS.” Prezi.Com, 2 Dec. 2014, prezi.com/m/5cavoqmoquno/codes-and-conventions-of-thriller-films/. Accessed 9 Nov. 2019.
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