History of Thriller Films - Miss Georgiou

Thriller is a genre of literature,film and television programming that uses its main elements suspense, tension and excitement. People often get confused about thrillers and horrors but they are very different, a Thriller is more interested in suspense, putting you "on the edge of your seat" or making you nervous for the fate of the characters. However in a Horror movie it wants to make you fear for your personal safety, to make you afraid that what happened to the characters may happen to you even when you've left the theatre.

1940s

In the 1940s , films in this time were in black and white and most thrillers depended a on psychological effect by using sound and editing to give suspense and thrill. The film Gaslight was directed by George Cukor, 1994, is about a girl, Alice who is found by her niece, Paula murdered in her home. Police fail to find the killer, and Paula is sent away to school. Ten years later, Paula returns to London with her new husband and take up residence in her aunt's house, which she has inherited. However, her husband has a secret that he will do anything to protect, even if it means driving his wife insane. This psychological concept was very appreciated by audiences as the husband keeping secrets and driving his wife insane was quite intriguing to watch. The film earned $2,263,000 in the US and Canada and $2,350,00 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $941,000. It was praised for the actors as Bosley Crowther stated " And with Mr. Boyer doing the driving in his best dead-pan hypnotic style, while the games flicker strangely in 
the gas jets and the mood music bongs with heavy threats, it is no wonder that Miss Bergman goes to pieces in a most distressing way. Both of these popular performers play their role right to the hilt. Nice little personality vignettes are interestingly contributed,too, by Joseph Cotten as a stubborn detective, Dame May Whitty and Angela Lansbury as a maid". The film was successful for is use of popular actors which grabbed the audiences to come watch it.





1960s: 

the protagonist point of view 

One thriller genius who was an expert of making amazing thrillers in the 40s was Alfred Hitchcock. He was an English film-maker/director known as the " Master of suspense thrillers" and he's work has helped to shape the modern thriller genre. In the 60s it was Alfred Hitchcock's years, as he created the " mother" of all modern thriller suspense films with Psycho. This was about a Phoenix secretary who steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. Although it's one of the most frightening films ever made, it has all the elements of very dark, black comedy. This film wasn't clearly understood by its critics when released. Hitchcock admitted that Henri-Georges Clouzot's influential thriller LesDiaboliques (1955, Fr.) inspired his film. In the shower scene, it broke the 180 rule; where a line drawn is in the middle to distinguish where the camera should remain to shoot what is in front of them. This is broken because when the disguised women is stabbing the victim in the show, the camera shoots this

the antagonist point of view 

shot from the position of where the protagonist is standing. However when it shows the victims emotional state and her getting stabbed the shot is taken from behind the bath to show her actually getting killed. This was used to obviously show both of the characters point of view in the scene and also their emotional state and body language to convey how they were feeling at the time of the situation. Even though the film was filmed in black and white, the use of the blood indicates that she is hurt and going to die. As we cannot see the actual colour of the blood which is red, this would be a disadvantage of those times thrillers because colour is very essential as it helps convey the atmosphere, feelings and mood of the film. However not seeing the colour red of the blood made the film slightly unrealistic so the audience wouldn't be able to relate to her as the blood would be red and not black. Within this scene, sound effects and the timing of shots were added to provoke and show the suspense and tensity which makes the film a successful thriller as editing techniques were quite simple at the time. 

1980s

In this period of time films were no longer in black and white and After Hitchcock's success with his thriller Psycho, many thrillers were influenced by the film and focused on the physiological aspect including camera angles & sound to create suspense.Fatal Attraction (1987), directed by Andrian Lyne is about a married man's one night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.This type of thriller would not be your typical thriller due to its lack of thriller conventions but the narrative does build suspense and tension within the film, this was why it was voted best psychological thriller at the time. In the scene of the bathroom brawl were the man and the antagonist who's is carrying a knife are having a fight, theres shot which is taken from under water. 

Knife 

Although time has changed , the conventional murder weapon, a knife was still used in this film. This shows that the film has kept the basics of a thriller to make it conventional and suit to its genre. This proves that the technology has improved in this era as now they used water proof cameras to capture shots like this under water. As films this time were mostly no longer in black and white, the colour would portray a more realistic scenario for then the audience can relate and bond with the characters. Psychological thrillers developed within this era and were mostly made as it allowed the audience to explore the character more in depth. 



2000s - Present 

Nowadays films and television are more advanced due to technology.The use of cinematography used to make viewers frightened. Thrillers now have sound effects, Colour and Camera movements which have all increased and improved as the years go on. The Cell (2000) starring Jennifer Lopez is about an FBI agent who persuades a social worker, who is an expert on new experimental technology, to enter the mind of comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim. On the list below, this film was ranked number 10, I believe this was because of its use of characters.
 As Jennifer Lopez is quite known already through the media with her music. The audience were probably drawn to see her in this thriller, also whilst watching the gut wrenching scenes where Jennifer's characters faced in, the audience would build a closer relationship and sympathise her. Its lifetime gross of $61,334,059 was probably successful due to its use of a known actor, Jennifer Lopez entering the minds of her patients. The plot itself is very interesting as it is through the protagonists perspective and of her entering this serial killers mind to find out where his victims are. As this is a thriller, the serial killer would obviously not be nice and kindly let her into his mind so whilst she's in there there are scenes where his twisted personality puts her into danger in the film. 

BOX OFFICE



Hannibal is based on a 1996 novel by Thomas Harris, The reason why i think that Hannibal is the most successful thriller on this list is because of its idea of the character eating his victims are disturbing. The film is about the aftermath of Hannibal attack on three people in the film " The Silence of the Lambs , Hannibal tries to get in contact from exile with disgrace FBI agent Clarice Sterling He also find himself as a target of revenge from a wealthy survivor of one of his attacks, Mason Veger, Hannibal had left him horribly disfigured after a therapy session. Also the theme of cannibalism exploited in this film would attract the audience due to the disturbing unusual nature of it. This makes the audience intrigued to watch the film as the mentality of the weird antagonist and narrative is so strange so they would want to know why he does what he does. As this film was a follow up to The Silence of the Lambs, its success of becoming number 1 on the list proves that this type of movie is very successful to make. 

However, The Cell which was placed 10th on the chart shown earned $61,334,059 and was released a year before Hannibal, was also a psychological thriller. Even though this was the similarity between the two films, I think that Hannibal's use of cannibalism in the narrative made the film more interesting for the audience to watch thats why it was placed at the top of the list. In The Cell the protagonist enters the antagonists mind to find where his victims are hidden, even though this is also un usual to do and is quite weird. Hannibal was on top because Cannibalism is basically eating your own, human eats human, so the strangeness of the narrative shocked the audience and made them fear themselves as it could happen to them. However entering someones mind is not something you can do everyday, so thats why i think Hannibal was more successful than The Cell. 

Red Dragon is the third novel and prequel to The Silence Of the Lambs and Hannibal. The American crime thriller was released in 2002 and at the opening it grossed $13,478,355 and $36,540,945 on its opening weekend. Many said online that the Red Dragon was better due to its character development however it didn't show the character Lector, who is a very known popular character for the wide audience. It landed on the 5th spot on the list and this may have been because it was sequel of the top rated film Hannibal and not many of the audience went to see it which resulted to Hannibal making better profit. 

In conclusion, exploring the history of thriller films was very helpful, as it gave me an introduction to the genre. I have learnt how thrillers have developed over time through this research and thought about how ill use it in my own thriller sequence. When doing my own thriller sequence i will refer back to this post as it will influence my choice on what to do in a thriller and how to make it appropriate for my target audience.