Research into the Thriller genre

Thrillers are a genre seen in media, film and televison texts that uses suspence and excitement as a common method to tell a story to an audience. The main purpose of the film is to generally keep the audience on the edge of their seats as the plot builds to a climax. Most thriller films excel in covering up important information from the audience until the end of the film where there is usually a big reveal in which the "mysteries" in the film are seemingly solved. Common thriller storylines revolve around crime (kiddnappings, heists, revenge being a few prime choices), however quite a large amount of thriller films (especially psychological thrillers) focus on more psychological themes (mind games, stalking, confinement, obsession being a few examples.) The most common type of thriller is the psychological thriller, however after the assassination of Presedent Kennidy, polical thrillers became very popular. Thriller films can be seen to have a "villain driven" plotline which the protagonist must overcome.

The majority of Thriller films are set in "ordinary" settings and the majority of the protagonists are regular citizens unacustomed to dangerous situations. However in crime based thriller films, the protagonists can be tough guys who are accustomed to danger (for example, detectives and police officers)

Thriller films are very similar to mysteries, however; the main difference is that in Thriller films, the hero attempts to foil a villain’s plan while in mystery films, the hero is trying to solve a crime that has already happened. For example, murder mysteries would be spoiled if the murderer was revealed from the start, however in thrillers the murder would be revealed to the audience from the beginning. Thrillers usually are a lot grander than mysteries, for example, while a mystery will end when the crime is solved, thriller films usually climax when the hero defeats the villain and saves the day. Another key difference is heroes in mystery films usually suvive once they mystery is solved, however, in a respectable amount of thriller films, the hero is often killed during the film’s climax. This method is highly influenced by “film noir” or “tragedy” films, which also show the hero to fall during the film’s ending. Recent thriller films seem to have converged with the horror genre and have a more sadistic tone and exhibit a lot more gore, violence and murders to the audience.