History of thrillers.
In 1923, the first thriller film was released by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor called Safety Last.
Alfred Hitchcock films brought the genre into popularity in the 1920’s as he became one of the most popular thriller directors of all time. His first film was The Lodger and followed a story similar to the case of Jack The Ripper. His most popular film is Psycho which was released in 1960.
In the 1940’s, thrillers focused of suspense and Hitchcock was still gaining popularity.
Hitchcock introduced colour into his films in the 1950’s. as well as this, spy thrillers began to gain popularity. An example of a film from this era was Vertigo.
In the 70’s/80’s, thrillers began to become more vivid and graphic. This led to one of Hitchcock’s films Frenzy being given an R rating due to an explicit strangulation scene.
Brian De Palma films often dealt with the themes of guilt, obsession, voyeurism and paranoia. They also often include a dream like sequence.
Nicole Kidman starred in a highly influential film in called Dead Calm. 1980 which explored topics such as trapped protagonists and obsession.
In the 1990’s, the themes of obsession and the FBI hunting down a criminal/ serial killer became very popular. This was labelled the crime thriller. It also falls into the psycho thriller genre as it deals with psychological subjects. Examples of this include David Fincher’s Se7en and The Talented Mr Ripley.
More recently, thrillers have evolved into horror thrillers using more elements of gore as well as the original conventions linked to the genre.
In 2010, inception was released which is a very popular thriller that uses complex narratives that we often see within the genre. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio who often stars in thriller films.
The Soprano’s is a popular thriller series that aired from 1999- 2007.
During the 2000’s, many thriller tv series have been majorly successful such as Dexter (2006-2013), Breaking Bad (2008-2013) and The Walking Dead (2010-2022).
Breaking Bad (10.3 million viewers), The Soprano’s (22.6 million viewers for season premiere 2001), The Walking Dead (5.35 million viewers).
Conventions of thrillers
Crimes such as ransoms, kidnapping, heists and revenge.
Characters including criminals, stalkers, police officers, victims etc.
Tropes such as plot twists, psychology, obsession, false accusations and paranoia.
A common element is the coverup of important information using red herrings, unreliable narrator’s and cliff hangers.
Hitchcock.
His style includes elements such as camera movements that follow a person’s gaze and shot types that maximise fear.
His films often turned the audience into voyeurs, maximum suspense and shocking endings.
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