Convensions of a Thriller

Most thrillers are based on the same idea and they normally all use the same effect and camera skills to create the same effect.

They all seem to use the idea that someone is being watch and that no one is safe, this creeps up the audience as they too don't normally know what is doing the watching a following so it makes us think that if the person who is being followed and watched does not know neither could we.
The create the effect of someone being followed by using hand-held cameras to show it from the stalkers point of view, they also use back tracking and tracking to show that someone may be following just behind.
I have noticed that they use girls that are alone, due to a female normally having a smaller and less imposing physical presence and could easily intimidated they are used, and them being alone makes them seem vulnerable.

Although in some thrillers you never really find out what is causing the trouble and who is the one doing the stalking until there very end, this helps build suspense and keeps us hooked and engaged throughout the whole film and it keeps us wanting to find out, in a way it involves the audience as we start to think about who it could be and why. In some of the films you see from the antagonist point of view even when you don't know who it is, like in se7en you see what he is doing at the beginning buy you do not see his face and that entices you, it shows your that people that you think are normal from what you see can be weird and twisted when they are left alone.

Thrillers also involve the battle of justice vs. injustice where often there is a price to be paid for the conclusion of the story.

Families are used in most, as families are the things that most value the most, as we can relate to that we feel bad for the person to which it has happened too.

All thrillers have a clear antagonist and protagonist which both have their own story, which we both normally end up feeling sorry for.

When weapons/props are used they normally are large, threatening and empowering props, for example a knife or a gun.

Some other general conventions of the thriller genre are to do with sound and editing. e.g. quick cuts and camera angle changes, music that gives tension. It can be to do with lighting, especially the use of shadow. Mirrors and stairs are also conventions of thriller movies.

For example in angles and demons, the antagonist does what he has too do in order to do what he thinks is good and to help the people, so the old saying of sometimes you must do bad things to do good. But he is the one to us and is shown to be the one that is doing bad.

In The silence of the lambs opening credits the women is running through the woods on her own, and the camera looks handheld and it is tracking her, she also never looks right at the camera which would imply that she didn't know it was there, this all give us the idea that she is being watched.


So far we think we will, take the idea of a women being on her own, and also use the idea that she does not know who that she is being watched.