Conventions of a Thriller

Initial ideas

• Somewhat gloomy, dull, rainy, dark weather. Thrillers are normally set in quite distant places e.g. in forests, lake districts.
• Most Thrillers consist of some form of mystique or mysterious character that doesn't usually get revealed until the end or the peak of the film.
• Normally, the lighting in thrillers is low key
• The non-dietetic sounds of Thrillers are normally quite slow and earie.
• Thrillers usually use suspense and excitement as its main elements.
• There are many sub-genre's of thrillers.
  E.g. Mystery; investigations, 'who done it?'
  Crime; kidnaps, revenge
  Psychological; mind games, psychological themes, psychological mind games, stalking, confinement
  Political etc.
  All of which use enigma codes
• An atmosphere of menace, violence, paranoia and murder are usually enticed into thrillers.
• Often in thrillers, a certain society is seen as corrupt, dark and dangerous.
• There are usually literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliff hangers.
• In most thrillers there is a disorientation of time and space to confuse characters and the audience.
• Many thrillers consist of some form of big reveal.

"Homer's Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as an early prototype of the thriller." A thriller is villain-driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.

In-depth Research Into Thrillers

As a genre on a whole, thrillers use suspense, tension, and excitement as it's main features and elements. The primary subgenre of thrillers are psychological thrillers. It was only after the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid when thriller films became to gain popularity, particularly in the film industry. The aim of a thriller is to excite and arouse the audience's moods such as, varying them from strong anticipation, high expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, suspense, excitement, tension, terror and obviously, thrill. Thrillers take full  advantage of literary devices like red herrings and cliff-hangers, so these are used extensively. The cover-up and slow reveal of important information, usually revealed in small intervals throughout the film, along with fight/chase scenes are common methods in thrillers and all of its subgenres, though each subgenre carries its own individual characteristics, techniques and methods.

 

Characteristics of a thriller
Well what consists of a thriller? In each and every thriller there is that atmosphere of scary menace and abrupt acts of violence or crime. In general, they are adrenaline rushing, stimulating, rousing and fast-paced with high levels of enigma. Thrillers are known to represent society, and the world in general, as dark, corrupt, sinister and pretty dangerous.

Characters in thrillers are usually criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims (often on the run), menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, private eyes, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.


Examples of Thriller subgenres, their methods & film examples

• Crime thrillers Methods mainly used in crime thrillers are ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. crime thrillers usually focus on the criminals, which often are serial killers, robbers or murderers being chased, rather than a policemen. What sets crime thrillers apart from psychological thrillers is that they usually emphasise more on action rather than the psychological aspects.
  Examples that involve murderers: Seven, Untraceable, Mindhunters and Copycat. Examples involving robberies are The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing and Reservoir Dogs.
• Mystery thrillersThis branch of thrillers use of methods are investigations and the 'whodunit' technique. 
• Psychological thrillersIn this subgenre, methods used are mind games, psychological themes, stalking, confinement/deathtraps, horror-of-personality, and obsession. Most of the time, these films end in violence. However, throughout the film the main focus is on psychological and emotional aspect of the characters. Unlike crime thrillers, the characters don't have to rely on their own physical strength to overcome their enemies, they rely on their mental resources and abilities. Suspense in psychological thrillers normally is created by at least 2 characters targeting each other's minds, either by playing games of deception or by simply trying to demolish the other's mental state.
  Examples of psychological thrillers are Psycho, Trapped and The Butterfly Effect.
• Paranoid thrillersElements like fringe theories, false accusations, paranoia, and sometimes action are found in paranoid thrillers.
• Conspiracy thriller
  This is when the good one in the film confronts a larger, more powerful group of enemies and they are the only one who knows and understands their true extent.
  Examples are The Chancellor Manuscript, Awake, Snake Eyes, Absolute Power, Marathon Man and JFK.
• Erotic thriller
  An erotic thriller is a film that combines the two genres, erotica and thriller. These films have increased in popularity in the 1980s and even more so in the rise of technological convergence, when the VCR came out.
  Examples of films in this subgenre include Chloe, Dressed to Kill, Eyes Wide Shut, In the Cut and Lust, Caution.
• Legal thriller
  In these films, lawyer-heroes or heroines confront enemies inside and outside of the courtroom. They are put in situations where they're not only in danger of losing their cases but also their lives.
  Examples would be The Runaway Jury, The Client, A Time to Kill, Presumed Innocent and The Juror.
  
• Supernatural thriller
  A supernatural thriller consists of a storyline where the audience are shown an otherworldly element, along with aspects of tension, suspense and plot twists. Unworldly elements can vary in these films, one example is that sometimes one of the characters have a psychic power or ability.
  Examples include Lady in the Water, Fallen, Knowing, In Dreams, What Lies Beneath, Unbreakable, The Gift, and The Dead Zone.