Background to the Thriller Genre

Class notes on thriller film conventions

• sinister plot
• suspense - the audience is anxious about what will happen next
• tension
• deception
• females - in distress
• music to suit the thriller mood
• mystery - audience is in the dark about important information - secrets are revealed
• villian - usually male
• plot twists
• main character - hero

typical narrative structure:

• beggining : normal
• middle : disruption by evil character/s
• end : build up to a tense climax - resolution - villian is killed/foiled

We had a discussion in class about the conventions usually found in a thriller film and listed the main conventions and characteristics. Mystery is a main part of a thriller film,this usually leads to the audience being in the dark about important information,meaning that the audience is constantly asking questions untill the secrets are revealed later on in the plot. Music is also a major characteristic of a thriller film, the music that is used can affect the way that the whole scene comes across to the audience and can dramatically change the mood it creates. Deception is also commonly used in thrillers,this makes the plot more exciting and dramatic, as sometimes, the audience knows that another character is being decieved but the character themselves do not know, this causes the audience to be in suspense about whether the character will find out that they are being decieved and about what will happen next in the plot. Suspense can be created in many different ways,by the music or by the camera,for example,in a situation where a character is being chased, the camera only focuses on one person, creating suspense as the audience are in the dark about where the other character is and wether they are near or far away.The typical narrative structure of a thriller film is a usually normal beggining,where the plot is vaguely introduced and the main characters are usually revealed, the middle of the film is usually the plot unfolds and secrets are revealed,typically,there is disruption by the 'evil' character/s.Towards the end of the film, there is usually a build up to a tense climax, this is usually the most dramatic scene in the film, and typically,the villian is killed or foiled. The villain in a thriller is usually male,and the main character, typically the 'good' one, usually ends up as the hero and defeats the 'evil' character, after they have endured a dramatic battle against each other. Plot twists and a general sinister plot are almost always apparent in a thriller film, the plot twists add mystery and excitement, and keep the audience hooked and interested as things arent always how they first seem, and the sinister plot brings danger and drama to the film, and is also a strong device to keep the audience drawn in to the plot.

How Red Eye follows the conventions of a thriller film

The definition of thriller displayed in the Film Studies Dictionary is “Thriller is a loose genre term referring to any film that generates suspense and excitement as a major aspect of its narrative”, and Red Eye definitely follows this definition. There are many different characteristics that are thought to appear in thrillers, and many of these characteristics are displayed in Thrillers, by Martin Rubin and are typical of the characteristics seen in Red Eye. For example, G.K Chesterton’s idea of ‘The Transformed City’, the argument that thrillers take urban settings and transform them into exciting locations for dramatic stories, is apparent in Red Eye as the film is mainly set on a plane and in an airport, everyday places that are not seen to be out of the ordinary, but in the film, these locations become dramatic and action packed, and become the perfect locations for a thriller. Another thriller convention thought of by Northrop Frye, is Heroic Romance. Frye argued that thrillers were stories that took ordinary people and threw them into extraordinary situations, and this idea is also displayed in Red Eye. The main character, a female, was a ‘normal’ person from an ordinary background that became involved in an extraordinary situation; she met the man who brought the situation on her in an everyday environment and their relationship was even thought of as being romantic, until the true nature of the situation was revealed. The idea by W.H Matthews, Mazes and Labyrinths, another convention of a thriller film, is majorly apparent in Red Eye. Matthews writes about how human beings have a fascination for physical puzzles-often seen in mazes and labyrinths, and how thrillers often use the idea of a character who is lost or trapped and needs to find a way out of their situation. The idea of a maze is something that runs through the whole film, as soon as the main character finds out her situation she searches for a way out and tries many different ways of escaping, but is not successful until the very end, this provoking the audience to think about what she should do next to try and get out of her current situation. Another characteristic of a thriller is the idea of Partial Vision, by Pascal Bonitzer. Bonitzer discusses how the audience is given a partial view of things-with the important details being obscured, this idea is shown in Red Eye such as at the beginning of the film, a wallet is taken from a characters house, but only the hand is shown taking the wallet, this making the viewers think who it might have been and trying to work out the mystery, also, at the end of the film the female main character is hiding in her house and being searched for by the ‘bad’ character, we are only shown where one character is at a time, so there is suspense as to whether the other character can see them hiding, or whether they are near or far away. Noel Carroll’s idea of Question and Answer is also a characteristic of a thriller that can be seen in Red Eye, Carroll argues that thrillers are structures around a series of questions for which the audience is led to want answers. This can be seen in the film in such situations as when the female main character asks the male questions on the plane about his true intentions, and when he answers there are questions put to the audience such as are his answers true? The questions that are put forward throughout the film always keep the audience thinking and wondering what will happen next. It is apparent that many of the conventions of a typical thriller can be found in Red Eye, showing that there are many different techniques used that aren’t visible until the film is analysed, that keep the audience hooked and altogether make a thriller.