The definition of the word thriller is essentially to thrill the audience, in modern society, the genre thriller is to give a suspenseful feeling to its audience, and this is usually portrayed by popular culture just like books and movies.
The idea for thriller is to give people a gripping sensation and a high-quality reaction out of them, this is usually made by making the piece of entertainment, dark and eerie with a few jumps along the way. Thriller is sometimes linked with Horror but it entirely different on its own. A thriller wants to thrill its audience with a well thought-out storyline whereas a horror mostly just wants to scare its audience with blood and gore.
A good thriller makes the audience question the film, the characters and themselves. At the end of a thriller film, the audience should be left reeling with the idea and the questions, the open ending, the majority of the time. There should also be several, well thought-out twists during the movie, the audience should always be guessing, thinking they know the secrets but they only know what the film is giving them.
Hithcocks ‘Pyscho’ (1960) is one of the most well-known thriller films and one of the first of its kind. It is a highly popular motion picture. For the most part, for it’s shocking storyline of killing of the main character a third way through the movie, this is an idea that had never really been done before and still fifty years later is not acted out all that often. The first main character is a young woman and in the sixties, the timeline the movie is set, women were seen as housewives and naïve. There are also several assumptions on who the murderer is throughout the movie, several characters are up for speculation, also the original main character is seen stealing a lot of money, however the real murderer never discovers this, Hitchcock lets us into a secret without even telling the main character. This makes the atmosphere dark and mysterious, as an audience we are waiting for the murderer to want to gain the money from the victim back, expecting a gruesome outcome; we are constantly waiting, as it never initially happens in the film.
Two other thrillers that have the same atmosphere and mystery that Psycho gives is Taking Lives (2004) directed by D.J. Caruso and a science-fiction thriller, Sunshine (2007) directed by Danny Boyle. Taking Lives, is a very tense thriller, we are given the victim of the story very much from the start, the audience is given little hints on who the actual murderer is but then a plot device is given to erase those hints and have the audience guessing again. Ethan Hawke who plays the Victim/Murderer gives an excellent performance, leading the audience to think of the possibility that it could be James Costa who is actually killing all the people by committing the ultimate cliché by turning himself in but Ethan manages to let self-doubt pass through the audience’s mind and believe he is innocent.
Sunshine is a science-fiction thriller, set fifty years into the future and in space. Sunshine is different to Psycho and Taking Lives because it doesn’t perform thriller-like features till the last third of the film. Because the entire film, minus two minutes at the end, is set in space, it already has a supernatural and dark atmosphere given to its audience. Not everyone has been to space but it is possible to go, which gives it the dim and gloomy setting.
Pinbacker, is the captain of the first Icarus 1, it is made clear to the audience that all communications with the first Icarus is gone, leading the audience to make the assumption that he and his crew are dead since they have been lost for more then six years. This plot sets up for a shocking twist when Pinbacker appears to be alive and becomes a slasher killer who claims to have been speaking with God and acting out for him.
If the director wants its audience to be scared or feel a sense of terror, this must be portrayed in certain scenes. Comparing to the horror genre again, most horrors feel the need to scare, scare and scare whereas thrillers usually run to the lines of a rather smooth atmosphere, scare, smooth, scare and then the big twist at the end comes. The three directors of these films are aware of this, despite Danny Boyle doing it in a different way.
Hitchcock portrays a creepy and outrageous feeling during the infamous shower scene. Despite the first lead character being completely naked during the scene, no real nudity is shown as Hitchcock directs the camera to only show what the audience needs to see. Hitchcock lets the audience in on the secret that Marion Crane is about to be killed because even though the shower curtain has been pulled and Marion isn’t paying attention, Hitchcock allows us to see the killer’s reflection behind the curtain, when the curtain is pulled back the camera goes to the knife and then to Marion’s shocked face. We never see the knife collide with Marion’s body like most killing films but we know that she is in fact being stabbed by the knife from the actions both actors give and bloody effects.
In Taking Lives, during the scene where Illeana Scott visits James Costa’s childhood bedroom, the environment is the basement, which by formula is dark and dingy, James Costa’s old bedroom is exactly that, it is hard floor, small and gives us an insight to the murderer. The audience is expecting something bad to happen during this scene, it is murky and sinister and the light tone of music gives of a dark vibe but when after several minutes nothing out of the ordinary does happen, the audience begins to relax and that’s when D.J. Caruso gives his next scheme and James Costa jumps out of the bed attempting to kill the lead character, however we still have no clue who this murderer is.
In Sunshine, Danny Boyle uses a lot of lighting and blurring during the scenes with Pinbacker as if we are unable to see his face properly and that we shouldn’t. Since Pinbacker is burnt all over is body, it is not completely essential to see him anyway but the fact that we don’t gives the audience a feeling of unease. When it is revealed that a fifth person is on bored, the lead character Robert Capa, portrayed by Cillian Murphy, facial expression give off that there is not supposed to be a fifth crew member on board as he argues with Icarus, the robotic voice, the audience begins to feel the same unease as the two other films welcomingly portray. Its not until Capa asks Icarus “Who is the fifth crew member?” and Icarus replies after a short silence with “unknown” that the action and tense scene starts this is also increased by the idea that the other three crew member still have no idea about the unnamed extra person on board.
Another scene in Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, is when four of the crewmembers enter Icarus 1 and there are several flashes of pictures of the previous crew members. At first, it is just one picture flashed for less then a second which makes the audience second guess themselves about what they really saw. Then another happens and then the entire crewmember’s pictures flash within a second, its sets a really frightening and disturbing impression.
Music plays a very important part in thriller movies, without music during a scene; the scene would be uninspired and boring.
For example, during the infamous shower scene in Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, the scene is soft whilst Marion Crane is showering and then as soon as the shower curtain is pulled backwards and the killer and the knife is shown the music volume is automatically turned up and deafening its audience, the music helps increase the terror in the scene and without it the scene would not make such an impact.
This is the same in Taking Lives, when James Costa’s mother steps into the elevator unbeknownst to her that her murdering son is standing right behind her, there is a soft tone of music whilst he speaks and we realise the shock on her face when she recognizes his voice and he is revealed to us. When Illeana runs down the hall towards the elevator and discovers who the real murderer is the music is loud and dies down when the murderer is seen and the realization dawns on Illeana’s face.
During the chase scene in Sunshine, whilst Capa is trying to get away from Pinbacker, there is loud dramatic music to fit the pace and scene of the moment.
All three films create a really good, tense-like build up in all their movies. In Psycho, the audience thinks that Marion Crane is the ‘Psycho’, the build up contains introducing Marion, having a sordid un-married affair, working for rich men with plenty of money, she then shockingly, steals the money. It is a long time into the movie until Marion actually reaches the main destination of the film and meets Norman Bates. Before the ‘Psycho’ enters the picture, although unbeknownst to the audience, he already has, there is a long conversation between Norman and Marion, which tells us more about their characters. Marion is a youthful and naïve young woman whereas Norman who appears to be an average, normal guy turns out to be something much more menacing and threatening.
Taking Lives, the build up lies with the fact that the actual murderer turns himself in to be the victim, making him the FBI’s last victim but the audience’s first. This thought is taken away when the ‘murderer’ is caught and thought to be killed; this makes the audience believe that James Costa couldn’t possibly be the killer since the murderer had essentially been unmasked.
In Sunshine, the first hour of the movie or so is completely un-thriller related, it is all about-facing their issues that the crew are having in space. However, because the situation is so unusual and is clear by their characteristics and the relationships the characters had formed that the setting and atmosphere is completely unnatural and helps make the audience already feel unsettled.
All three films include a form of a twist and it’s usually the twist along with the tense atmosphere that helps define the genre thriller. In Psycho, whilst we are expected to believe that Norman’s mother is the murderer and even when we find out that his mother is in fact dead, we still believe that Norman must have lied about his mother’s death and that she is still very much the killer. The audience is left shocked and reeling when we discover that Norman’s mother is very much dead and that Norman dresses up as his mother and continues to kill.
In Taking Lives, we discover that James Costa is the real murderer but that is not the only twist of the film. At the tail end of the film, we discover that Illeana is pregnant, this attracts James and he comes back to rekindle his romance with her, only to resort to anger when he is rejected by her, he then tries to kill her and her unborn child, only to discover that the pregnancy is false. This was an extreme shock ending and although it leaves all the questions answered, it still leaves the audience stunned.
In Sunshine, the main twist is to discover that Pinbacker is actually alive and that nothing physically went wrong in Icarus 1, Pinbacker and the crewmembers essentially chose to end their time by sabotaging Icarus 1. However, the film does manage to leave a lot of things unanswered, such like, how did Pinbacker survive? Did Robert Capa survive? And how did the crewmembers choose to die instead of continuing with their mission?
The best kinds of thrillers end the film with the audience bombarded with questions about the film, about what happened, how everything could have happened and how it all could have ended. In Psycho, it ends with a cliff-hanger, what actually happens to Norman Bates? Although, Taking Lives and Sunshine, tie up the movie, many questions and answers are still in need making all three films very successful thrillers.
