The Thriller Genre

Thrillers use suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. One of the most important characteristics of a thriller is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats as the film builds towards a climax. Tension is created when a character is in a situation that is seemingly impossible to escape or where the audience is aware of something the character is not. Alfred Hitchcock is iconic in the thriller genre, a pioneer labelled ‘The master of suspense’ with such films as Psycho and The Birds. In recent years thrillers have been more heavily influenced by the horror genre being more sadistic, gory and brutal such as the Saw franchise, The Collector and Last House on the Left this is possibly because audiences are becoming more desensitised and are constantly looking for more shocking footage. However there are still great thrillers being made which keep the audience entertained by more conventional methods rather than having to use brutality such as Inception, Shutter Island and The Next Three Days.