What is a Thriller?

A thriller is a film that relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff- hanging at the edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. Thriller and suspense films promote intense excitement, a high level of anticipation, ultra- heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and nerve-wracking tension. In these movies the tension usually rises when the main character is either put into a menacing situation, escaping or on a dangerous mission from which the audience see escape is probably not an option. There are many different varieties of thrillers such as action, adventure, sci-fi, crime-caper,western,film-noir and even romantic comedy thrillers exist. Horror is known to be closely-related to thrillers, as they are also designed to elicit tension and suspense, whilst taking the viewer through agony and fear.

One of the first psychological thrillers was Gaslight (1944). Paula's aunt, Alice Alquist, a famous entertainer, is murdered in her home. Paula, who lives with her aunt, finds the body. Police fail to find the killer, and Paula is sent away to school. Ten years later, Paula returns to London with her new husband. They take up residence in her aunt's house, which she has inherited. Paula is increasingly isolated by her husband but does come to the attention of an admirer of her aunt, Mr. Brian Cameron. Written by Sandra Douglass.

Safety Last (1923) was one of the first 'Thrillers' it was produced in the United States of America. The movie was black and white and was directed by Fred C. Newmeyer , Sam Taylor. The movie was a a mix between a romantic thriller and comedy.

Alfred Hitchcock is known to be 'The Master of Suspense Thrillers', not a single list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English filmmaker Hitchcock. He is was born in London, before he went into film he worked for a short time in engineering. He left for Hollywood at around 1939, Alfred started to work in the media by submitting short articles from an in-house publication. In his very first piece, he employed themes of false accusations,conflicted emotions and twisted endings. Hitchcock took his full time position at the Famous Players-Lasky Company designing title cards for silent films. In 1925, Alfred Hitchcock directed his first film and began making the "thrillers" for which he became known the world over. He explored the darker side of human nature through the different sexualities, voyeurism, guilt, punishment, paranoia and obsession.

Religious Thrillers - In many religious thrillers there are a lot of different themes incorporated into one, obviously the primary theme would be religion but it hits on different aspects of thrillers as well. It could include a gathering of a religious group, ceremonies, sentimental objects and lots more. For example, in some religious thrillers you might come across supernatural or out of body experiences, as well as lots of church images. Examples of these types of thrillers could be 'The Devil’s Advocate', 'The Ninth Gate' or 'The Da Vinci Code'.

Psychological Thrillers - Most psychological thrillers have drama, mystery and meaningful suspense.The protagonists in a psychological thriller must be reliant on their mental resources to solve the situation that they might be in, because of their nature; many psychological thrillers usually cross over into the horror genre. Some examples are 'Memento', 'Rear Window', 'Taxi Driver'.