Research - Finding the right genre - How about Thriller?

Definition: A thriller is a film which is highly suspenseful and creates a tension and anxiety for the audience. "A genuine thriller is a film that restlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy." (filmsite.org)


Background Research and Examples: Thrillers take many forms, such as; murder mysteries, private eye tales, chase thrillers, women-in-danger films, courtroom and legal thrillers, erotic thrillers, surreal cult-film soap operas, and atmospheric, plot-twisting psychodramas. They focus on danger and fear of characters. This makes an audience feel uneasy as they worry for the characters.
Characters in thrillers include convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, duplicitious individuals, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.

They can be closely related to horror as seen in "Psycho" (1960) and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), as both aim to create tension within an audience. They can also be a hybrid with other genre's (sub-genre's), such as:

• action/adventure thrillers ("The Dark Knight" - 2008)
• sci-fi thrillers ("Inception" - 2010)
• crime thrillers ("The Godfather" - 1972)
• western thrillers ("High Noon" - 1952)
• romantic-comedy thrillers ("The Butterfly Effect" - 2004)

Various thrillers use plot twists where the aim is to take the story and end it in a way the audience was not expecting, notably in "The Sixth Sense" (1999) and "Se7en" (1995). 


Relevance to our project: We are aiming to produce a story which is thought provoking and surprising. Our plot will have a twist revealed in the first 2 minutes which we hope will surprise and unsettle the audience. Therefore we are going to class it as a thriller and a horror.