What is a Thriller?

A thriller is a very broad genre used in many films. The aim is to play with tension to stimulate the viewer's mood so they are constantly anticipating future events.They tend to be fast-paced, full of quick shots and are total adrenaline feeders.

This broad genre can be split up into sub-genres: Psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, mystery thrillers...
No matter what the sub-genre, they still aim to set up a major conflict that the protagonist must overcome.

Alfred Hitchcock was the man who really introduced thrillers as a genre that was accepted. One of his earliest thrillers was 'The Lodger' which was made in the 1920s.He did a few thrillers around this time, but it was only really after 1935 that he spent most of his effort into making his film thrillers.

Some examples of a pschological thriller are:

'Psycho' - Alfred Hitchcock. An incredibly famous film who's most celebrated scene is the shower scene in which we see a naked woman begin brutally stabbed. It is a psychological thriller because Norman Bates, the killer, is an incredibly strange and messed up man. It is in his craziness that he kills all his victims.

 'American Psycho' -Mary Harron (based on Brett Easton Ellis' novel)

This is a perfect example of a psychological thriller and is actually what my AS film is taking ideas from. It focusses on a succesfull wallstreet stereotypical yuppie. His mental state causes him to become blood-thirsty and turn into a serial killer. We see his instability a lot when he uses a voice over to show his inner thoughts.

Some examples of a crime thriller are:

'Silence of the Lambs' -Jonathan Demme. This could also come under the psychological thriller heading too as it is about a serial canabalistic thriller. What makes it a crime thriller is the FBI aspect of it and how he tries to solve this gruesome crime.

'Se7en' - David Fincher. This is about two homocide detectives that come together to get deeply involved in a case that deals with a serial killer who has cunningly planned out his murders to correspond with the seven deadly sins.