Genre research

 Genre research

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. A thriller needs to create a rush of exitement or tension to the audience, depending on how the audience reacts to thriller films. Thriller is also very closely coincided with the horror genre, to which both use suspense and atmosphere to cause feelings of dread in their audiences. The genre of thriller film developed from well known novels. Then later these novels were studied and adapted and later reproduced into a thriller film.

Starting in the early 1920, there were only certain directors that made and filmed horror films, such as Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger which was made in 1926, a suspenseful Jack the Ripper story

The Lodger, 1926, Alfred Hitchcock

His next thriller was Blackmail,made in 1929, his and Britain's first sound film. Other thriller film directors were Walter Forde, Victor Saville, George A. Cooper, and Michael Powell made more thrillers in the same period; Forde made nine, Vorhaus seven between 1932 and 1935, Cooper six in the same period, and Powell the same. Hitchcock was following a strong British trend in his choice of genre. However as thriller films have developed over time, they have had a mass audience rather than just a niche audience like in in the mid 1900's.
In the 1970's-80's, saw a violent start in the thriller genre. One director from around this time was Brian De Palma usually had themes of guilt, voyeurism, paranoia and obsession in his films. Similar plot elements include killing off a main character early on, switching points of view, and dream-like sequences. His films include, the psycho-thriller Sisters, a film about dual personalities.
In the 1990's and present, there was and still is quite a lot of a common story line of obsession, one book that was then changed into a film at the beginning of the decade was  Rob Reiner's Misery, based on the book by Stephen King, with Kathy Bates as an unbalanced fan named Annie who terrorizes, in her care, an incapacitated author named Paul.

A film is portrayed as a thriller when the story line gives the audience thrills, and keeps them on the ’edge of their seats’ as the plot builds up towards the climax. The tension is usually built up by a character being placed in a menacing situation, a mystery, or a trap which seems impossible to escape. There is also use of life threatened during a thriller film, as the main character is usually unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in an extremely dangerous situation.

There are several different types of conventions of drama, and they are all used to make the perfect thriller film. For example:
The narrative centres around a crime eg. a theft or a murder.
The protagonist is likely to be deceived or mistaken for what they actually are, and maybe they could of been framed for something the antagonist has done. 
The title will be extremely mysterious, leaving the audience guessing on what will actually happen in the film.
The protagonist will be seen 'in peril' in one or more scenes before the resolution.
The antagonist could be perceived by trying to make the protagonist 'go mad' , until the protagonist feels isolated and helpless.
The narrative presents ordinary situations in which extraordinary things happen.
Film elements combine in a build up of suspense, such as mise-en-scene, sound, cinematography and editing.
Themes of identity are common: mistaken identity, doubling/doppelgangers, amnesia.
Themes of seeing, reflection and mirroring. Manipulation of perspectives, and optical illusions are common.
A series of/ one important enigma(s) are/is set up in the opening sequence of the film, is further complicated during the first part of the film and only resolved at the very end.