History of the Thriller Genre
Thriller is a type of genre that focuses on suspense and tension so that the audience is anxious about the ending of the film. There are different types of sub-genre in thriller movies, for example there’s action, horror, crime, supernatural, psychological, mystery and conspiracy thrillers. The most popular one is either action thriller or psychological thriller. The thriller genre is used in literature, film and television. Some thriller films are reproduced from well known books but the producers just make more anticipation and expectation into the movie. The thriller genre and horror genre are very similar because they both consist of keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
The plots of thrillers normally consist of a main character being trapped in intimidating or mystery situation and they have to try and find a way of escaping whilst there’s a critical situation going on. A thriller also made include a cliff-hanger which leave the audience wanting to see more, or even a plot where the audience knows something that the main character doesn’t.
The thriller genre started in the 1920’s by a man called Alfred Hitchcock who made a silent movie called ‘The Lodgers’. He based his idea on Jack the Ripper’s murders. The movie also gave a good insight by introducing the thriller genre. Another movie that gave the world a new insight into thriller movies was George Cukor in the 1940’s who produced a psychological thriller called Gaslight which introduced a sub-genre for thrillers. Another psychological thriller made in the 1940’s was The Spiral Staircase made by Robert Siodmak. Both these movies had a twisted plot about serial killers. In the 90’s thrillers were mostly psychological and had the theme of a mental characters trying to escape. Movies like ‘Misery’ made by Rob Reiner, which is based on a book by Stephen King, which is about a girl called Annie who gets terrorizes by a man called Paul, and tries to escape his mad ways. But now-a-days psychological thrillers include gore and horror which joins horror into thrillers. Supernatural thrillers include movies like ‘The Unborn’; where as psychological include movies like Psycho in 60s, Shutter Island and Inception. Horror thrillers include movies like Scream 4, Saw VI and Alien. Crime thrillers include Se7en, Taken and Ocean’s 11. Now-a-days thrillers can have severe elements of different sub-genres, for example A Nightmare on Elm Street is a horror, supernatural and psychological thriller.
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