Thriller (genre)

Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements.^[1] The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies.^[2]

Thrillers are mostly characterised by an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, though they often feature a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested. Thrillers heavily promote on literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliffhangers. They also promote on moods, such as a high level of anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror. The tones in thrillers are usually gritty, slick and lurid.^[3]

The cover-up of important information from the viewer and fight/chase scenes are common methods in all of the thriller subgenres. Though each subgenre has its own characteristics and methods.^[4] Common methods in crime thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings and, more common in mystery thrillers are, investigations and the whodunit technique. Common elements in psychological thrillers are mind games, psychological themes, stalking, confinement/deathtraps, horror-of-personality and obsession. While elements such as conspiracy theories, false accusations, paranoia and sometimes action are common in paranoid thrillers.^[5]

"Homer's Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as an early prototype of the thriller." ^[6] A thriller is villain-driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.^[6]

Characteristics

A genuine, standalone thriller is a film that provide thrills and keeps the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the character(s) is placed in a menacing situation, mystery, or an escape from which escaping seems impossible. Life is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation.^[7]

Characters in thrillers include criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims (often on the run), menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, private eyes, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.^[7]

Thrillers mostly take place in ordinary suburbs/cities. Though sometimes, they may take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, or high seas. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger. However, more common in crime thrillers, they may also be "hard men" accustomed to danger, like, police officers and detectives. While such heroes have traditionally been men, women lead characters have become increasingly common.

Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories, but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must thwart the plans of an enemy, rather than uncover a crime that has already happened; while a murder mystery would be spoiled by a premature disclosure of the murderer's identity, in a thriller the identity of a murderer or other villain is typically known all along. Thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements. While a mystery climaxes when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others. In thrillers influenced by film noir and tragedy, the compromised hero is often killed in the process.

In recent years, thrillers have been slightly influenced by the horror genre; they have more gore/sadistic violence, brutality, terror and body counts.^[8] Recent thrillers that did that are Eden Lake, The Last House on the Left, P2, Untraceable and Funny Games

Similar distinctions separate the thriller from other overlapping genres: adventure, spy, legal, war, maritime fiction, and so on. Thrillers are defined not by their subject matter but by their approach to it. Many thrillers involve spies and espionage, but not all spy stories are thrillers. The spy novels of John le Carré, for example, explicitly and intentionally reject the conventions of the thriller. Conversely, many thrillers cross over to genres that traditionally have had few or no thriller elements. Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes, and Brian Callison are best known for their thrillers, but are also accomplished writers of man-against-nature sea stories.

Thrillers may be defined by the primary mood that they elicit: fearful excitement. In short, if it "thrills", it is a thriller. As the introduction to a major anthology explains,

Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said that "In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed by the moody heroine."^[10]

Sub-genres

The thriller genre can include the following sub-genres,^[11] which may include elements of other genres:

• Conspiracy thriller: In which the hero/heroine confronts a large, powerful group of enemies whose true extent only he/she recognizes. The Chancellor Manuscript and The Aquitaine Progression by Robert Ludlum fall into this category, as do films such as Three Days of the Condor^[12], Awake, Flightplan, Snakes Eyes, Edge of Darkness^[13], Absolute Power, Marathon Man, In The Line Of Fire, Capricorn One, and JFK^[14].
• Crime thriller: This particular genre is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. These films often focus on the criminal(s) rather than a policeman. Crime thrillers usually emphasise action over psychological aspects. Central topics of these films include serial killers/murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, heists and double-crosses. Some examples of crime thrillers involving murderers include, Seven^[15], A Perfect Murder^[16], No Country for Old Men, Firewall^[17], Hostage, Silence of the Lambs, Kiss the Girls and Copycat^[18]. Examples of crime thrillers involving heists or robberies includes The Asphalt Jungle^[19], The Score^[20], Rififi, Ocean's 11, Entrapment^[21], The Killing and Reservoir Dogs^[22].
• Disaster thriller: In which the main conflict is due to some sort of natural or artificial disaster, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc., or nuclear disasters as an artificial disaster. Examples include Earthquake, 2012^[23], The Day After Tomorrow^[24], Poseidon, Knowing^[25], Deep Impact and Twister.
• Erotic thriller: In which it consists of erotica and thriller. It has become popular since the 1980s and the rise of VCR market penetration. The genre includes such films as Basic Instinct^[26], Dressed to Kill, Color of Night, Eyes Wide Shut, Fatal Attraction^[27], Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Obsessed, and In the Cut.
• Legal thriller: In which the lawyer-heroes/heroines confront enemies outside, as well as inside, the courtroom and are in danger of losing not only their cases but their lives. The Runaway Jury by John Grisham is a well known example of the type. Other examples include The Client, Fracture, A Time To Kill, Primal Fear, A Few Good Men, Presumed Innocent and The Juror^[28].
• Medical thriller: In which the hero/heroine are medical doctors/personnel working to solve an expanding medical problem. Robin Cook, Tess Gerritsen, Michael Crichton, and Gary Braver are well-known authors of this sub-genre. Nonfiction medical thrillers are also a subcategory, comprising works like The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Films such as Extreme Measures, The Experiment, Anatomy, Coma and Pathology are other examples of medical thrillers.
• Mystery thriller: Suspense films where characters attempt solving, or involved in, a mystery. Examples include Flightplan, Mindhunters^[29], The Number 23^[30], Unforgettable, Shutter Island, Secret Window, Vertigo, Identity and Memento^[31].
• Political thriller: In which the hero/heroine must ensure the stability of the government that employs him. The success of Seven Days in May (1962) by Fletcher Knebel, The Day of the Jackal (1971) by Frederick Forsyth, and The Manchurian Candidate (1959) by Richard Condon established this sub-genre. Examples include, The Constant Gardner, Rendition, The Good Shepherd, Topaz, Syriana, The Interpreter^[32] and Proof of Life^[33].
• Psychological thriller: In which (until the often violent resolution) the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, rather than physical. The Alfred Hitchcock films Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt, and Strangers on a Train and David Lynch's bizarre and influential Blue Velvet are notable examples of the type, as is The Talented Mr. Ripley, House of 9, Phone Booth, Cape Fear^[34], Red Eye^[35], The River Wild^[36], Psycho, P2^[37], Breakdown^[38], The Collector, Panic Room^[39], Don't Say A Word, Frailty^[40], The Good Son, Dead Calm^[41], Funny Games^[42] and Misery^[43].
• Rape and Revenge films: Out of the sub-genres of exploitation film, this focuses more on the thriller elements such as suspense, tension, some action and fast-pacing rather than scares and the supernatural. Some famous rape and revenge films are The Last House on the Left, Irréversible, Thriller - A Cruel Picture, Baise-moi, Kill Bill and I Spit On Your Grave.
• Religious thriller: In which the plot is closely connected to religious objects, institutions and questions. While suspense stories have always shown a significant affinity for religion and philosophical issues (G.K. Chesterton's novel The Man Who Was Thursday has been called a "metaphysical thriller"; and Umberto Eco's novels The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum both display thriller characteristics), Dan Brown's 2003 best-seller The Da Vinci Code has led to a current boom in religiously oriented thrillers. Other examples include the film version of The Da Vinci Code, The Devil's Advocate, The Ninth Gate, Angel Heart, The Sin Eater, The Omega Code and Angels & Demons.
• Supernatural thriller: In which the film brings in an otherworldly element mixed with tension, suspense and plot twists. Sometimes the hero and/or villain has some psychic ability. Examples include, Lady in the Water, Possession^[44], Fallen^[45], Frequency, In Dreams^[46], Flatliners, Jacob's Ladder, The Skeleton Key^[47], Signs, What Lies Beneath, Unbreakable, The Gift^[48], The Dead Zone and the TV series Medium.
• Techno thriller: A suspense film in which the manipulation of sophisticated technology plays a prominent part.^[49] Examples include The Thirteenth Floor; The Matrix; Jurassic Park; I, Robot; Eagle Eye; Hackers; Futureworld; eXistenZ and Virtuosity.

Although most thrillers are formed in some combination of the above, there are some however that are formed with other genres, which commonly are the horror genre, spy genre and the action/adventure genre.^[50]

Examples

Fiction and literature

Ancient epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Odyssey and the Mahābhārata use similar narrative techniques as modern thrillers. In the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus makes a perilous voyage home after the Trojan War, battling extraordinary hardships in order to be reunited with his wife Penelope. He has to contend with villains such as the Cyclops, a one-eyed giant, and the Sirens, whose sweet singing lures sailors to their doom. In most cases, Odysseus uses cunning instead of brute force to overcome his adversaries.

"The Three Apples", a tale in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), is the earliest known murder mystery^[51] and suspense thriller with multiple plot twists^[52] and detective fiction elements.^[53] In this tale, a fisherman discovers a heavy locked chest along the Tigris river and he sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, who then has the chest broken open only to find inside it the dead body of a young woman who was cut into pieces. Harun orders his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days. This whodunit mystery may be considered an archetype for detective fiction.^[51][54]

The Count of Monte Cristo is a swashbuckling revenge thriller about a man named Edmond Dantès who is betrayed by his friends and sent to languish in the notorious Château d'If. His only companion is an old man who teaches him everything from philosophy to mathematics to swordplay. Just before the old man dies, he reveals to Dantès the secret location of a great treasure. Shortly after, Dantès engineers a daring escape and uses the treasure to reinvent himself as the Count of Monte Cristo. Thirsting for vengeance, he sets out to punish those who destroyed his life.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is an early thriller by John Buchan, in which an innocent man becomes the prime suspect in a murder case and finds himself on the run from both the police and enemy spies.

Novelists closely associated with the genre include Eric Ambler, Sydney Bauer, Ted Bell, Dan Brown, Lincoln Child, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, Nelson DeMille, Ian Fleming, Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, Graham Greene, John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Alistair MacLean, Andy McNab, David Morrell, James Phelan, Douglas Preston, and Matthew Reilly.

Notable contributors to the thriller genre

Writers

Directors

Television

There have been at least two television series called simply Thriller, one made in the U.S. in the 1960s and one made in the UK in the 1970s. Although in no way linked, both series consisted of one-off dramas, each utilising the familiar motifs of the genre.

24 is a fast-paced television series with a premise inspired by the War on Terror. Each season takes place over the course of twenty-four hours, with each episode happening in "real time". Featuring a split-screen technique and a ticking onscreen clock, 24 follows the exploits of federal agent Jack Bauer as he races to foil terrorist threats.

Lost, which deals with the survivors of a plane crash, sees the castaways on the island forced to deal with a monstrous being that appears as a cloud of black smoke, a conspiracy of "Others" who have kidnapped or killed their fellow castaways at various points, a shadowy past of the island itself that they are trying to understand, polar bears, and the fight against these and other elements as they struggle simply to stay alive and get out of the island.

Prison Break follows Michael Scofield, an engineer who has himself incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in order to break out his brother, who is on death row for a crime he did not commit. In the first season Michael must deal with the hazards of prison life, the other inmates and prison staff, and executing his elaborate escape plan, while outside the prison Michael's allies investigate the conspiracy that led to Lincoln being framed. In the second season, Michael, his brother and several other inmates escape the prison and must evade the nationwide manhunt for their re-capture, as well as those who want them dead.

Other examples include, Dexter, Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, CSI, The 4400, Numb3rs, The Twilight Zone and The X-Files.

See also

• Adventure novel
• International Thriller Writers
• Spy film
• Mystery film
• Horror film
• Action film
• Crime film

References

http://www.grindhousehorror.com

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