Section 1: Background of the Thriller Genre

Thriller Genre:

• Victim
• Villain
• Hero
• Chase scene
• Plot twists
• Murder
• Detective
• Suspense
• Clues
• Tension
• Red Herrings
• Conventional
• Predictable

Theoretical Approaches To The Thriller:

GK Chesterton:

The Transformed City
'The poetry of modern life'. The world is a drab and mundane but thrillers attempt to find the excitement and adventure in everyday life. Thrillers transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Northrope Frye:

The Heroic Performance
The hero is 'one of us' who is forced to behave in an extraordinary way. We are happy to believe in this reality as according to Frye, thrillers are similar to romantics. The romantic setting of an 'enchanted forest' is replaced by the modern city.

John Cawelti:

The Exotic
Foreign or unfamiliar artifacts or settings can turn a normal environment into one of enchantment and mystery. This is achieved by introducing the everyday world of an element of the exotic. Many thriller films make use of the artifacts from the Middle East or the Orient.

W H Matthews:

Mazes and Labyrinths
The origins of the labyrinth lie in Greek Mythology, as it was the maze into which Theseus had to descend in order to kill the Minateur. This image, of a hero going down into an underground maze full of twists and dead ends is perfect for describing most thrillers. the maze should be complex and the solution should be reached through deduction and strategy. This defines the thriller narrative as well as allowing the audience to gain pleasure from prolonging the puzzling journey rather than being able to solve the problem quickly.

Pascal Bonitzer:

Partial Vision
We only get to see so much and what we don't see is very important. The things hidden from view are an active part of the system of pleasures in thrillers and keep us watching the film as the answers may lie around the next corner in the maze/labyrinth. The need to catch a killer by a deadline or land a plane before the fuel runs out can create a maze from any environment.

Lars Ole Saurberg:

Concealment and Protraction
These are two ways in which suspense works to pull the audience in different directions. Concealment is the deliberate hiding of something from an audience such as a vital clue or the killers identity. Protraction is the deliberate delaying of a suspected outcome and can be achieved through bomb countdowns. They both increase suspense and the audience's pleasure.

Noel Carroll:

The Question-Answer Model
Key questions are contained within the narrative that the audience wait in suspense to find out the answers. These questions must be clearly stated and understood by the audience and should have limited amounts of outcomes such as, will they live or die? Suspense is also created through probability factor and moral factor. Probability factor is a 'sure thing' and is less exciting and suspenseful than a battle against the odds. Moral factor is a 'right' outcome that increases our involvement in the action, sharpening the suspense. The most suspense is created when the two factors are combined and the most desirable outcome is the least likely.