What is a Thriller

Thriller is a genre of film, television, and even literature, which usually has subgenres for example:

• Action or Adventure thrillers (The Dark Night - Christopher Nolan- 2008)
• Sci-fi thrillers (Alien - Ridley Scott - 1979)
• Crime-caper thrillers (To Catch a Thief - Alfred Hitchcock - 1955)
• Western thrillers (The Mask of Zorro - Martin Campbell - 1998)
• Film-noir thrillers (Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder - 1944)
• Romantic-comedy thrillers (Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Doug Liman - 2005)

Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
Thrillers generally keep the audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The cover-up of important information from the viewer, fight and chase scenes are common elements. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is usually a villain-driven plot, where he or she presents obstacles that the protagonist must overcome.

A closely related genre to Thriller is Horror e.g The Cabin in the Woods - Drew Goddard - 2012. A lot of horrors aren't good films because half of the film is spend on watching bodies being chopped up or zombies trying to kill everyone. Horror films are purely made to scar people for life whereas thrillers are made to create suspension and take the audience on a journey through the film. This is why I believe that thrillers have become more popular than Horrors and unless the Horror genre can escape out of the stereotypical elements of Horror, Thrillers will always be more popular.

What I really like about Thrillers is that they aren't very repetitive so if you go to the cinema to see a thriller you probably won't have seen many other films like the one you are about to watch. Obviously there are conventions to the thriller genre that we can't escape from because it's what makes a good thriller and the audience expect them to happen. When I watch thrillers, I can always tell when something bad is going to happen and everybody knows the whole "I heard a noise in the basement...lets go and take a look". The director knows that audiences foreshadow events in thrillers and so they use this to their advantage and play with the timing. An example of this is the "fake jump-scare". Here is an example :



So how did all of these subgenres come into play and who was the first example of the thriller genre?

The answer is...(drum roll)...(drum roll)...(drum roll)...ALFRED HITCHCOCK!!!

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense". He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England's best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 and became a US citizen in 1955.

Over a career spanning half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. His stylistic trademarks include the use of camera movement that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative forms of film editing. His work often features fugitives on the run alongside "icy blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of murder and other violence. Many of the mysteries, however, are used as decoys or "MacGuffins" that serve the films' themes and the psychological examinations of their characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and sometimes feature strong sexual overtones. He became a highly visible public figure through interviews, movie trailers, cameo appearances in his own films, and the ten years in which he hosted the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker. He came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from viewers) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." In 2002, the magazine MovieMaker named Hitchcock the most influential filmmaker of all time.[1] Reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock

As you can see from Wikipedia's detail and description of Alfred Hitchcock, it is clear to see that he was extremely influential in creating the thriller genre and his techniques will always be referred to. Here is a list of his best thriller/suspense films:

1. The 39 Steps
2. North by Northwest
3. Rope
4. Shadow of a doubt
5. The trouble with Harry
6. Vertigo
7. Rear Window
8. Psycho
9. The Lady Vanishes
10. Notorious