What is a Thriller movie?

Brief:
Film the opening sequence of a new thriller, including titles, aimed at 15 or 18 certificate audience (approximately two mintues in duration)


To begin, we, as a class, discussed our general ideas and thoughts on the characteristics of a thriller film. These were our results:














Dictionary term for 'Thriller':
"Thriller is a loose genre term referring to any film that generates suspense and excitement as a major aspect of its narrative.".


We then looked at a few theories concocted by other people.

G.K Chesterton, an early 20th Century writer of thriller stories argues that thrillers took urban settings and transformed them into exciting locations for dramatic stories. A modern example of this in film is "Panic Room" because the whole concept is this panic room and it'd transformed a normal room into a room of terror.


Northrop Frye, author of "Heroic Romance" , argued that thrillers were stories that took ordinary people and threw them into extraordinary situations. Another example in film would be "Spiderman" because Peter Parker was on ordinary person who got bitten by a radioactive spider and thrust into the limelight.

John Cawelti, author and pioneer of modern culture said that thrillers took the elements of ordinary lifes and added an exotic element. An example of this would be "James Bond" because he is a man with an extraodinary job.


W.H Mathews had a fascination with puzzles and mazes and the theory of mystery he felt that thrillers included these factors and also included the characters having to get to the bottom of puzzle or the audience members questioning what was happening. An example of this would be "Cube" the whole film is like a huge maze and the audience have to ask questions throughout asking how they got in there and 'how are they gonna get out?'

Pascal Bonitzer an award winning teacher at The French school of Film thinks that thrillers give the audience a partial view of the situation and important details are obscured in many ways. Through information being withheld and images etc. "The Dark Knight" is a good example of this because the audience are kept from seeing the Jokers true face.


Noel Carrol thought that a good thriller was structured around a series of questions of which the audience is led to want answers from the movie.


Roland Barthes, a French literary critic analysed all narratives and realised that all narratives included enigma codes that operate moment by moment. Enigma codes are parts of a narrative when the reader is led to ask a question. In thrillers enigma codes are very important for telling the story in a suspenseful way. A good example of this would be "Seven" when at the murders the audience are led to ask many question like 'which sin was it?', 'how were they killed?'.