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Genre

 

The main elements that constitute a thriller film are suspense, tension, and excitement. The storyline typically has a fast-paced narrative, in order to provoke a feeling of anticipation and consternation amongst the audience. Other conventioinal elements include plot twists, cliffhangers, red herrings, and a storyline propelled by a villain. 

 

Further generic conventions are as follows:

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  • The desire for "justice and the morality of individuals".

  • The storyline focuses on the protagonist's point of view.

  • The existence of innocence in a seemingly corrupt universe.

  • The plot concentrates on an enigma, which must be cleared. 

  • The antagonist's power is initially greater than the protagonist's.

  • The main storyline is a quest, which is indispensable to the protagonist.

  • The representation of characters and events is acceptably verisimilitudic. 

  • The protagonist is confronted with the risk of their own death, or somebody else's. 

  • The characters each find themselves in a position of conflict, which they are incapable of resolving. 

 

Conflict can come from another character, or a more abstract force.

 

Suspense is a necessity, as it carries enigmas, that entice the viewer to continue watching until a climactic point is reached. It can be divided into two aspects: fear, and hope. 

 

Clues are placed in scenes, designed to allow the viewer to solve part of a puzzle at around the same time as the protagonist. The viewer is occasionally presented with information which is unknown to the protagonist – a device which can put the audience in a position of dominant specularity. 

 

The enigmas posed are not required to include "Who did it?"; many thrillers present the quandary of whether or not the villain will be caught before performing another transgression.

 

In every subgenre of thrillers, the danger of the protagonist's challenge is emphasised. Furthermore, it is customary to witness a chase/fight scene, although each subgenre has its own version.

 

In his book, The Suspense Thriller, Charles Derry defines the thriller genre in three points, the third of which makes reference to sub-genres, and can be found on the sub-genre page of this site.

 

The first point is the most general, describing the genre with a few relatively generic points:

The definition then continues, to list much more specific elements that constitute a thriller:

Conventional mise-en-scène in thriller films often includes dark, noir-esque lighting, with a reliance on artificial light, allowing subjects to be easily illuminated with a small budget. The dark lighting connotes villainous activity, aids ambiguity and suspense, and attempts to embed the audience in the world of the characters. 

 

Chiaroscuro lighting is the use of contrast between light and dark, to dramaticise the composition of a frame. It contributes to the interpretation of noir and neo-noir films as nightmarish. It played a major role in 1940s and 1950s films, although it has much less of an effect in colour films. 

 

Iconography associated with the thriller genre includes flowing water, woods, blades, shadows and silhouettes, street lights, barred windows, and fences – particularly those with a barred-style. Mirrors and stairs are also related to the genre, but are particularly affiliated with the psychological thriller sub-genre.

Although this iconic scene is from a horror film, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), it illustrates various conventional elements of the thriller genre, such as the use of shadows, staircases, and an implicit distortion of space, in this case caused by perspective distortion. 

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