The Conventions of a Thriller

The thriller genre is certainly very broad, and has a great many subsections, like crime thrillers, psychological thrillers and action-adventure thrillers. 

BFI writer Neil Sinyard observed that in Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolen says 'the suspense is terrible' before adding 'I hope it will last.' Sinyard questioned, 'why is it that we both fear and enjoy being frightened?'* I think these ideas are hugely important when looking at thrillers and what draws audiences to them- we are entranced thrillers because they seem like they could be real. Thrillers are typically written about 'normal' people that we would see on the street, or would live on our road, but end up going through a roller coaster of a storyline, thus literally 'thrilling' the audience. 

Thrillers often involve ransoms, captivities, heists and murders performed by psychotic or damaged individuals, and eventually a hero (who always seems to have flaws, and yet we love them despite of this) comes along and saves the day, and in classic thrillers sometimes rescue a damsel in distress on the way. In the 21st century, story lines have more or less developed so we have both men and women as the protagonist who saves the day, but it has to be said that in the end women are frequently still seen as the victim. Take The Girl on the Train (2016) starring Emily Blunt, an example of a recent thriller movie- the women are the flawed heroes, but in the end they are still the victims. Of course this is a key part of what makes the films so strong, the women all overcome the problems in their lives that have been caused by men, but it is true that is is still seen in many other films too. 

Thrillers aim to keep audiences of the edge of their seats in suspense, building up to a dramatic climax towards the end of the film. This in turn builds tension because as this is the principle for so many thrillers, audiences frequently expect a twist if the film is very slow-paced at the beginning. The most celebrated and iconic creator of the thriller is Alfred Hitchcock, who was famous for setting up normal-looking scenes, and then using a very slow-build to lead to a climax. He was the key founder of the thriller genre in the 1920s, and until the 1960s the genre was  dominated by his films, with classics like The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960). Since then the genre has broadened, and film-makers have looked to aspects of sub-genres of thrillers as inspiration for their films, like The Silence of the Lambs (1991), a psychological thriller based around the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter, and Inception (2010), a sci-fi thriller looking at dreams and our perceptions of reality.

*http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/444810/

assessed 18/10/2016