Section 1 - The Thriller Genre

Many people had therories on what the thriller genre is like, and what a thriller means in their viewpoints

The Transformed City

C K Chesterton belived that thrillers 'transform' ordinary into extraordinary, he used this term refering to cities. He belived that the world is quite bleak and thrillers turn this dull urban areas into a full depth story that thrills an audience for example a murder could occur in a city or town which would create the story. This view is shown in the movie Se7en as an urban city is turned upside down by the events that occur and in this case murders.

The Heroic Romance

Northrop Frye believed that the hero of a thriller should be an average everyday person, In the thriller the 'hero' has to act in extraordinary ways due to the circumstances brought before them.

The Exotic

John Cawelti thought that locations. Also some of the characters in thrillers should be unfamiliar with the areas they are put in, he states this as this would add to the excitement.

Mazes and Labyrinths

W H Matthews believed that sudden changes should happen in plots and some stories shoud lead to dead ends. Dead ends would be used in thrillers to hide the identities of certain characters and in this case keeping the audience guessing and adding to excitement

Partial Vision

Pascal Bonitzer had the idea that certain areas in a film should be hidden to the audience to make thier experiences better for example something could happen but we only see the outcome of it

Concealment and Protraction

Lars Ole Saurberg stated that information that’s important to the narrative is not actually known to the audience but revealed later on in the story. This creates an interrogative style for the audience which makes them guess until the ending climax

Question and Answer Model

Noel Carroll came up with the idea that the audience should be made to ask questions but later on in the film the answers to these questions are revealed. This keeps the audience eager to know the answers which creates a gripping narrative for the audience to see