The Thriller Genre

1. The Thriller Genre Maria Tidd AS Media Studies

2. What is a thriller genre? • Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies. • Thrillers are mostly characterised by an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, though they often feature a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested. Thrillers heavily promote on literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliff-hangers. They also promote on moods, such as a high level of anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror. The tones in thrillers are usually gritty, slick and lurid. • Characters in thrillers include 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.

3. A brief history of thriller.. • Film-makers have been combining these elements for almost as long as cinema itself. With the first audiences quickly tiring of the technical marvels of the new-fangled medium, directors sought more inventive ways to thrill their viewers. Borrowing a trick from the hugely popular serial literature of the time, producers began to churn out weekly instalments of long-running franchises, each ending with a cliff hanger that sees the hero in mortal danger. The most famous of these was the 1914 series ‘Perils of Pauline’, notorious (and much parodied) for featuring a villainous cad who bound our heroine to rail tracks as a locomotive approached. • The serial format continued into the sound era, but the talkies also allowed the thriller to develop into along more sophisticated lines. The 1930s was the period of the gentleman detective, where a witty one-liner was more likely to get you out of a sticky moment than a deftly landed punch. Films like ‘The Thin Man’ or ‘Bulldog Drummond’ • featured suave, debonair heroes, invariably • sporting fine suits and pencil-thin moustaches, • who were caught up in exotic mysteries and tended • to face down all manner of mortal danger with • courtly sangfroid.

4. 1930’s – 1960’s • The Bat Whispers (1930) is a mystery • film directed by Roland West, produced • by Joseph M. Schenck, and released by • United Artists. It is the second film based • on the 1920 hit Broadway play The Bat by • Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. • The first film version of the play, The Bat • (1926), was also directed by Roland West. • Just as in the play and the first film, people • explore an old mansion looking for a hidden • treasure while a caped killer picks them off one by one. This film is noted by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for some elements of the Batman character, which he created. The Bat Whispers – Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otv4VNs8N9M • Psycho is a 1960 psychological thriller film directed • by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is based on the screenplay • by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of • the same name by Robert Bloch. The novel was based on • The film depicts the encounter between a secretary, • Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), who is in hiding at a motel • after embezzling from her employer, and the motel's owner, • Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), and the aftermath of • their encounter. Psycho initially received mixed reviews, • but outstanding box office returns prompted a re-review which • was overwhelmingly positive and led to four Academy Award • nominations. Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock's best • films and is highly praised as a work of cinematic art by international critics. The film spawned two sequels, a prequel, a remake, and a television movie spin-off. The film is often categorized by multiple sources as a drama, horror, mystery and thriller film. Psycho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT7a8Gv9qdA

5. Alfred Hitchcock • Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope (1929) by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn (treatment)and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions. Starring James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger, it is the first of Hitchcock's Technicolor films, and is notable for taking place in real time and being edited so as to appear as a single continuous shot through the use of long takes. • The original play was said to be inspired by the real-life murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924 by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Rope has similarities to Agatha Christie's short story The Mystery of the Spanish Chest from the collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN9xAfto5Vg Rope – Part 1

6. Thriller in the 1970s And Soon the Darkness is a 1970 British thriller film. Starring Pamela Franklin, Michele Dotrice and Sandor Elès, it tells the story of two young English women on a cycling holiday in France, who run into difficulties. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkIJ4zPONpg Duel is a 1971 television film about a terrified motorist (played by Dennis Weaver) on a remote and lonely road being chased and stalked by a huge tanker truck and its unseen, psychotic driver. It was the first feature film directed by Steven Spielberg and was written by Richard Matheson based on his own short story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ227NC3774 Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council, which wants the beach to remain open to draw a profit from tourists during the summer season. After several attacks, the police chief enlists the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. Roy Scheider stars as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as marine biologist Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as the Mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smglO7eEPlo

7. Christopher Nolan The Dark Knightis a 2008 superhero film directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. Christian Bale reprises the lead role. The film follows Bruce Wayne/Batman (Bale), District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and Police Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and their struggles and journey in combating the new rising threat of a criminal who goes by the name of the "Joker" (Heath Ledger). Nolan's inspiration for the film was the Joker's comic book debut in 1940, and the 1996 series The Long Halloween, which retold Two-Face's origin. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Nolan used an IMAX camera to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7lVb1VfH4 Inceptionis a 2010 American science fiction film written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine. DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a thief who extracts information from the unconscious mind of his victims while they dream. Unable to visit his children, Cobb is offered a chance to regain his old life in exchange for one last job: performing inception, the planting of an idea into the mind of his client's competitor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM

8. Post-Modern Thriller Parodies • It has been debated that Wez Cravens Scream (1996) is a Post-Modern Thriller Parody. I agree with this statement to a certain extent as I believe when the film was released in 1996, this type of thriller was new to the public’s television screens. So the story and the characters involved therefore scared the audience as they have never watched a film like Scream before. Wez Cravens’ mind tricking techniques effect the audience when they are watching this film which therefore creates the sense of a thriller. On the other hand, if a modern day audience was to watch Scream, they would probably find it amusing. As the mask that the ‘bad guy’ uses looks comical to a modern day audience as it will be recognised just as a plastic Halloween mask. Also watching Drew Barrymore, the main character in Scream, running around her house panicking and holding a knife and screaming would also in some way amuse the audience as she was not seen as the stereotypical character to use in thriller films such as Scream. So in some way, she may look out of place from the audience point of view.

9. Audience What do we get out of it? The audience develops an intense thrill from watching these types of films . It allows us to feel a sense of danger even though we are not involved. Physiological thrillers, for example, play with our minds and make us believe something impossible is true or real. What do we expect? The audiences’ expectations change rapidly as the media is constantly showing how violence is becoming more advanced and depicted – so we are expecting the graphics, violence and physiological power in modern thriller films to exceed our expectations.

10. How do they effect us? • A genre that is similar to horror and crime, but it lacks scares and frightening content. The genre is more about suspense, psychology, mystery, tension and even drama. • Thrillers tend to be realistic; There is no bogeyman in thrillers. Killers tend to be more human-like, maybe a little mental, and they do not wear masks or anything like that. Most thriller killers have reason to kill others (ransom, revenge, obsession, jealousy, etc). Some may be just psychotic, though not Michael Myers/Jason Vorhees psychotic, but more realistic Norman Bates/Anne Wilkes-psychotic. • These factors are more likely to effect us as we are able to connect and relate to these films more – as they can actually happen in real life. Such as cereal killers etc, this is therefore how thrillers are able to scare their audience as certain events can be based on a true story.

11. Settings and Locations • Usually thrillers are set in the present day, or within the last 20 years or so. This therefore allows them to give off a more realistic effect. For example, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is set in a criminally insane hospital located on the island itself. Just by making the audience aware that the people within the hospital are mentally unstable, it creates a physiological thriller within itself and makes the audience think why they are in the hospital and why the hospital is located where it is. Thriller films like this are very successful as this type of story as it makes the audience want to watch the film and find out the plot beneath the meaning. • Shutter Island • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYVrHkYoY80

12. Themes • The Human Monster - the horror of the personality, the psychopathology of murder (serial killers). The audience is taken into the mind of the killer. An exploration of mankind’s propensity for evil. • Hauntings & Demonic Possessions – playing on our fear of the unknown. For instance, Christopher Nolan‘s Inception plays with the audiences’ mind vividly on our own natural human dreams.

13. Narrative • Narrative twist and turns, building to a climax . . . • A sense of Equilibrium - Disequilibrium - return to a state of Equilibrium . . . • A killer, or someone threatening is on the loose. • He (rarely female) or it captures, evades or tortures. • He or it is eventually captured/killed and then stopped.

14. Character • It has been known that you will find up to a total of 8 characters in any narrative. In a Thriller they include: • Characters in thrillers include convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, duplicitous individuals, 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.

15. Iconography of Thrillers • A villain – they’re most likely to be human to • create a more realistic viewpoint. • Screaming victim (most likely to be a girl) • Darkened places where the villain may live or hide. • Binary Opposites (good and evil) • Symbols of Death • An investigation • Body horror (blood and body parts) • The phallic murder weapons or plans.