"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."
Alfred Hitchcock
The thriller genre is one of the most used genres within the film industry, although due to the thriller label being over used, the meaning of what a thriller is, has become diluted.
The thriller genre is the art of keeping one on the edge of their seat as the plot builds to a climax, stimulating the viewer's moods, giving them heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety
So what makes a thriller?
Suspense. Suspense is one of the most important characteristic of the thriller genre, fuelling the audiences fascination and excitement mixed with apprehension, anticipation and tension. Suspense is created through the use of camera, editing, sound and mise en scene, but one of the main techniques thriller films do to create suspense is through what is shown and what is note.
The emotions a thriller instigates is from ideas of hope and fear, which are aroused in anticipation for the conclusion.
Audiences experiences suspense when they expect something bad to happen they are given a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening.
For example the shower sequences in Alfred Hitchocks psycho.
The thriller genre is compared closely and sometimes confused with the horror genre. While both of the genre's aim to evoke emotion, the horror genre evokes the emotion of fear, while the thriller genre evokes more of an exciting and exhilarating feeling. For example the horror genre involves a protagonist dealing with terrifying situations or entities. It can include, their own psychological fears, creatures, aliens, ghosts, serial killers, inner fears, and more. The protagonist usually endures psychological or physical traumatic experiences that are unusually strange and/or frightening to them. The focus is on dark, twisted, and nightmarish fears.
While on the thriller genre involves excitement and suspense and is often plot driven. You may notice that all of the movies movies shown for the horror genre may also be considered thrillers since most horror movies are made to be exciting and suspenseful. Originally, thrillers were reserved for crime, spy, mystery, or espionage. However, the term today has nearly lost its original meaning as the label of thriller has been applied to almost all films for marketing purposes, creating the endless list of sub-genres, for example action/adventure thrillers, sci-fi thrillers, film-noir thrillers, western thrillers and even romantic comedy-thrillers.
One of the earliest thrillers was from Harold Lloyd’s comic "safety last", which to sum it up, is about a boy performing daredevil stunts on the side of a skyscraper. Yeah I know pretty sick. right? However, who really brought the light to the thriller scene was the man known as the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.
The English film maker revolutionized the story telling industry, shaping the modern-day thriller genre. It all began with his early silent film Lodger (1926) which was a suspenseful jack the ripper type story, and since then he came out with the most impressive pieces of cinema till this day.
Hitchcock’s films often place an innocent, relatable, victim into a strange, life treating or terrorizing situation, in a case of mistaken identity, misidentification or wrongfully accused. He would explore the darker side of hum nature through the situation, including sexuality and voyeurism, guilt and punishment, or paranoia and obsession.
While the thriller genre is consistently evolving, directors like Hitchcock and what they gave to the thriller genre, will not be forgotten. And with all the new techniques and ways of doing things I believe the quality and detail that Hitchcock and many more went through to create that final masterpiece is just not as apparent now a days.
Thanks for reading… till next time...
this has been an Ashen Page essay.
