Sub-Genres

The thriller genre can be divided into many sub-genres. Charles Derry elucidates by straitening the most pervasive sub-genres down to "(1) the thriller of murderous passions, (2) the political thriller, (3) the thriller of acquired identity, (4) the psychotraumatic thriller, (5) the thriller of moral confrontation, and (6) the innocent-on-the-run thriller", in his book The Suspense Thriller.

On this page, I describe the generic conventions of each, and give examples. Each sub-genre is likely to include elements of others.

Comedy thrillers are simply thrillers that have a disproportionate amount of comedy compared to other thrillers. They commonly incorperate elements of the horror and spy thriller genres. One distinguishing feature is that they often put more of an emphasis on individual actors, as comedians transfer to the film industry, taking their popularity with them.

Comedy

Examples include The Ladykillers, and American Psycho.

Political

Political thrillers concentrate on the struggle for political power. The themes explored include corruption, terrorism, and war. The first political thrillers arose in the early 1950s, possibly inspired by events such as the First Indochina War, and the Cold War.

They overlap with conspiracy thrillers significantly.

Crime

Techno

As technology is a major aspect of modern life, new thriller films are predominantly techno-thrillers.

Examples include Jurassic Park, and Hackers.

Crime-thrillers focus on the characters involved in a crime, either as a criminal or an investigator. Some may also concentrate on the victim(s) of a crime, although this can come very close to simply being a thriller.

Techno-thrillers contain an inordinate amount of emphasis on the technological details. They are often set in the time of a world war, and the subject is usually military equipment.

The plot frequently relies on functions of the technology in question. For example, in The Hunt for Red October, the plot relies entirely on submarine technology, specifically a new propulsion system.

Techno-thrillers overlap the most with science fiction, as they are both reliant upon technology. However, thrillers generally maintain a fast pace, and have a clear antagonist; the technology in techno-thrillers is typically new and undisclosed military equipment, unlike in science fiction films. Of course, there are exceptions.

This sub-genre often overlaps with the action genre. However, crime-thrillers prioritise the drama of the criminal/investigative methods.

Examples include The Silence of the Lambs, The Departed, and Seven.

Examples include Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Argo.

Conspiracy

The storyline of conspiracy thrillers typically involves a large organisation portraying the antagonist, and a protagonist who is the only one to realise that the organisation is the antagonist.

History, either fictional or factual, that has been suppressed or forgotten, is a common theme.

Examples include Executive Action, and The Game.

Significant in British cinema, spy thriller films typically revolve around the topic of fictional espionage in a realistic way, although some films represent it in a fanciful manner.

Spy

Spy films that contain frequent action, e.g. car chases and shootouts, are categorised as part of the action genre, rather than the thriller genre. The James Bond series is the most conventional example of this.

Examples include North By Northwest, and the Bourne series.

Psychological

Psychological thrillers concentrate on the unstable nature of characters' psychology, particularly their struggle to comprehend reality. The themes explored include identity, perception, and existence.

They often subsume horror, drama, and mystery, and are categorised as psychological thrillers as long as they replace action with the exploration of psychology.

Elements such as convoluted relationships, moral ambiguity, and a "dissolving sense of reality", make psychological thrillers closely related to the genre of Gothic fiction.

Suspense is created through the exploitation of uncertainty concerning characters' motives; "MacGuffin" is a commonly used concept, such as in Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Further examples include Memento and The Butterfly Effect.

As we plan to make a psychological thriller, I have researched its conventions in more detail:

General:

The confusion of time and space.

Camerawork:

Close-ups are particularly perennial, as they give the viewer information about a character’s emotion, which can increase the verisimilitude of a situation, thereby inflating the audience’s empathy.
Drastic changes in camera angle, to represent a character as fearful, and imply that they are being preyed on.

Editing:

Frequent rapid increases in the pace of the editing, and a high average pace, generate tension.
Flashbacks, to give the audience information about an event in the past, that has affected a character.

Mise-en-scène:

Claustrophobic spaces, to represent entrapment.
Set in an urban environment. The countryside is more typical of the horror genre, as the mass audience feels more alienated, and verisimilitude is harder to achieve, amongst other reasons.
The code of dress matches the location.
The antagonist wears dark clothing.
The protagonist wears lighter clothing.
Low-key lighting, to emphasise ambiguity and create shadows, which can enhance symbolism, and the cararacteirueirueiutaoet effect.
Mirrors and stairs.
Red, black, and white.

Soundtrack:

Eerie non-diegetic strings.
Changes speed synchronous to the editing pace.
Selective sound of diegetic effects, e.g. footsteps, wind.