Thriller Conventions

During my media lessons, I have learnt what actually makes a thriller, and what thriller conventions are. For example, a thriller doesn't include super-hero's which have the ability to climb up walls or have magical powers. Instead thrillers are corruptive and often quite dark and bleak. Often they also have the certificate of a 15 or 18, and not for the younger audience. They also use real protagonists who are often dark characters who have the ability to kill people and corrupt there lives.

Examples of these type of thrillers are films such as "Chinatown," "Sin City," "Reservoir Dogs," and TV series such as "Spooks." Conventions include crime at the core of the narrative. Examples of films including crime are "Psycho," which involves a human being being murdered while taking a shower. "Sleeping with the Enemy," where Laura is the victim of systematic and violent abuse by her husband, and plenty of other plots from films include penicillin being given to vulnerable children. All these type of plots are defiantly chilling, and not for the younger audience.

Other conventions include false paths, false clues, red herrings and enigmas. An example of these type of conventions being used and conveyed is "Third Man,"where questions may be asked to as why at the end of the film when she walks past the well intentioned protagonist Holly Martins because she is still in love with the character "Harry Lime," who committed heinous crimes against children. This crimes included watering down Penicillin and selling it on at the black market.

Resolutions to the crime are also often ambiguous, and the protagonist is often dis empowered and drawn into a web of intrigue by the antagonist (the person who intends to oppose the hero). The protagonist is also often flawed. For instance, in "Pulp Fiction," Jule's brutal past is redeemed by his sudden professed conversion to Christianity, which is presented as threatening and hilarious.

The antagonist is also often attractive, but the arrogance of the characters can often be there downfall. Extraordinary events also often occur in ordinary situations. For example, the gruesome scene in "The Godfather (part 1)" where a member of the mafia wakes up in bed with the bloodied head of the horse sitting on the pillow beside him. Most possibly one of the most gruesome scenes throughout the the trilogy of "The Godfather." This also induces the shock factor.

Themes of voyeurism is also used, and elements mise-en-scene frequently reflect the protagonist's emotional state. Shadows, lift shafts, alley ways, car parks, car boots, spiralling stair cases all reflect the entrapment of the hero and a suggestion that there is no way out. Thriller signifies such as wall streets and narrow roads indicate a fall into the world that is morally corrupt and confusing.

Deviant female fatale is also classic of noir thrillers. For instance women are often filled with glamour and sexual seduction and pulls the male protagonist into further peril. The themes of identity of who is the protagonist who is the antagonist or line between good and evil are often blurred of confused. The narratives are also often very twisted, which us again a known thriller signifier.