Thriller Genre

Definition:

Thriller is a board genre for movies or television. This is based on excitement, action, suspense and tension. Thriller is a genre that stimulates the audience’s mood so they are at the edge of their seat. Thriller includes surprise, excitement, terror and anxiety.

Conventions:
There are five main thriller genre conventions. These are:

• Themes
• Narrative
• Characters
• Iconography
• Cinematic style

Themes: For a thriller genre conventions the theme is 'the big ideas behind the stories'. Such as:

• Revenge
• Madness
• Greed (money)
• Obsession
• Paranioa
• heroes

 This movie has many themes that makes the movie more appealing and engages with the audience whlist they watch the film. There is obsession of money which makes everyone fight which happens in a typical thriller movie.

Narrative: The narrative is the stories and the story elements of the movie. This includes:

• Murder
• Blackmail
• Explosions
• Investigation
• Surveillance
• shoot chase

This movie has narratives to make the story line flow. It has essential points thats makes the movie a thriller film. There is blackmail towards Will Smith that makes the movie more appealing towards the audience. There are investigations that needs sorting out which engages with the audience more because they will have enigma codes in their mind which they want answers to so they have to carry on watching it to find out more about the movie.

Characters: There are many different types of characters being acted within a film. Characters such as:

• Villians
• Criminal
• FBI
• Hit-men
• Curropt Cops
• Private dectectives
• Gangsters

This movie 'Leon' is a perfect example of character conventions because it has varies of different type of characters during the whole story line. There were curropt cops, FBI and criminals which makes the movie more interesting and appealing to the audience.

This is a thing which is victims in peril which is called "femme fatales". these are seductive and dangerous women which use their physical appearence as an advantage. However, thriller genres are mainally male dominated with macho men usually.

'Salt' is a great example of ''femme fatales'' because Angelina Jolie in the movie is a seductive woman with her appearance and is like a tiger. She brings her pray in and the lounges at the dangerously. This is a good example and explaination because a typical thriller film has macho men as actors but this is different so it will appeal more a wide range audience.

Iconography: This is based on the costumes, props and settings of the film itself. these are visual elements such as bulidings and urban like stuff. These include:

• Cars
• Sharp suits
• High tech weapons

'Taken' has all the ideal features for a thriller movie. It has all the iconography conventions because of the action which they use cars and high tech weapons to make the scene more interesting and to put the audience on the edge of their seats. Most of the characters wear sharp suits which made them look smart and sophisticated , they also look like they are ready for any action that would take place and comes across as confident.

Cinematic style: This convention includes things such as camera work, sound and lightening. This contains:

• Suspence music
• Gun-fire/shooting
• Fast paced editing
• Pyrotechnics
• Low cuts
• CGI
• 
  

  Lightening                  

  'The hand that rocks the cradle' is ideal case of cinematic style because it has suspence music which makes the movie and the scenes more intriging and puts the audience on the edge of their seats and creates tension.

The lightening has a massive effect on the scenes and settings within the house because the lightening could make you realise whos the main character and the lightening could also make the scene more intriging towards the audience.

Thriller Subgenres:

There are many different subgenres that fit into the genre 'thriller'. Each subgenre has a different effect on the audience.

Comedy thriller:

This movie is a really good type of comedy thriller movie, this is because there are a married couple however have this tension between eachother. They try to kill eachother during the movie however, speak to eachother like nothings going on. There are different types of characters that are included in the movie, the movie also contains 'femme fatale' because the woman is seductive however dangerous aswell because she has weapons she can use to kill her husband such as knives and guns.

Crime thriller:

This  movie is in the crime thriller subgenre because it has narratives like murders that is based around the movie. There are different characters that makes the movie more engaging for the audience so they are interested to carry on watching the movie. They also used the camera-work to make the movie more of a good quality and more clear what is going on in the movie for the audience. They use fast paced editing to make the movie more appealing.

Sci-Fi thriller:

'i Robot' is Sci-Fi because there are a certain theme that is massive within the movie with is supernatural. The robots can talk and do everything but in reality that wont be able to happen. There are many different technology sources that was being used in the movie.

Gangster thriller:


'The Godfather' is a gangster thriller subgenre because theres many themes and narratives which makes the story and the elements within the movie more appealing so it engages with the audience more. You will be able to find narratives such as blackmail and fist fights in gangster thrillers because thats a typical gangster thriller movie.

Revenge thriller:

An example of these five conventions of a thriller genre is 'Leon'

This film contains all these conventions and also fits in a Revenge subgenrefor thrillers.

There are many different characters which makes the film more adventurous and interesting for the audience.

Disaster thriller:

'2012' is a disaster film which means that there are many tradgeies happening during the film. The movie looked so real that the audience believed that the world is going to end at the end of 2012. The movie has many different themes like madness and uses cinematic style such as suspence music to make the movie more appealing to the audience and more interesting to watch.

Action thriller:

This movie contains narratives such as Fist fights, murder and many more. This movie fits into this thriller subgenre because its has many themes going on such as madness and technology, it also has iconography for instance high tech weapons and guns. This is why 'Die Hard' is a Action thriller subgenre.