History of the

Thriller Genre

History of the plot:• When Hitchcock first began making thriller films

the plot was often simple and rarely had large plot twists. As the years went on the thrillers became more and more complicated therefore fulfilling the audiences needs and making it all the more exciting, suspense and tense.

• More recently with films like taken and casino royale the thriller has including a hybrid. Therefore more than just the thriller genre, these films are crime-thrillers and overall add to the excitement of the film as a whole.

• Hybrid films can also include action-thriller for example, the dark night rises, political-thriller for example, conspiracy theory, and finally psychological-thriller for example, the machinist.

• The typical conventions presently of a thriller include, breath-taking, suspense, mystery, an atmosphere and the fact its unpredictable.

• However in most Hitchcock films such as frenzy (1972) include a murder scene and also a very large plot twist as they have suspected the wrong man.

History of the characters:• Stereotypically when thrillers first became

popular there would always be one hero and one villain. It was more of a one on one issue between characters.

• As the thriller genre has developed there has been many changes to the use of characters. There have conventionally become gangs and groups of protagonists and antagonists.

• Previously throughout the genre characters have included things like detectives, police, innocent victims and terrorists. More recently characters have developed into more criminals, stalkers, people who have experience in twisted relationships and people with mysterious pasts.

History of themes:• There are very similar themes now in the film

industry of thriller films as there was years ago.• Common thriller themes include, terrorism,

politics, conspiracy, pursuit, abduction and romantic triangles/dysfunctional relationships.

• The themes have changed slightly as there have become hybrid genres used more frequently in the film industry therefore adding more themes to the specific film.

• For example added themes to action-thrillers are, violence and special effects.

• Secondly in a crime-thriller themes such as, crime and mystery are added to build suspense and create more drama therefore allowing the audience to be “on the edge of their seats”.