Research on Genre : History of sub genre

Thriller is a genre of film that uses suspense, excitement, twists/surprises and tension as its main elements. The overall purpose of a thriller film is to "thrill" the audience and make them gripped to the screen, so they don't miss out on anything that adds to the storyline.


The sub-genre of our film is Crime/Thriller this is along the same lines of films such as Inside Man, Seven, Reservoir Dogs, Training Day. The main point to a crime thriller film is to keep the audience constantly intrigued on what is happening and more importantly what will happen next. For the audience to fully enjoy a film they must be interested in the plot and the characters and empathise with them. The crime thriller sub-genre is different to other types of thriller films as this includes a type of "crime" in our films case kidnap and robbery. A typical storyline of a crime thriller film is someone gets kidnapped and wants a ransom for their life and give a time limit to when they receive the money, this adds to the tension as the audience don't know if they will make it in time.  

One of the first records of a thriller film was a 1913 short film called "Suspense. It was a silent film directed by Phillips Smalley and Lois Webber. This film features an early example of the split screen shot.


The most famous thriller film is Psycho which was made in 1960. This is a psychological/suspense thriller. This film involves a protagonist of a woman stopping in a motel and an antagonist of a motel keeper named "Norman Bates" who turns out to be a murderer.