Thrillers are, in essence, a dramatic interpretation of one of the greatest battles waged every day; right versus wrong, good versus evil, justice versus injustice. People enjoy to take a seat at the front row of this battle because of the influence of modern western ideals that means we can easily empathise with the characters involved; in most cases the victim. However, some thrillers use moments in the story that give an insight into how the villains brain is working, in order to create understanding of both sides to further the feeling of tension for the viewer through the conflict of the battle. However they almost always focus more personally on the hero to create a sense of emotional attachment with the viewer.
Many people find it hard to differentiate between thrillers and horror films. There a few key differences; thrillers use psychological methods of creating suspense, however horror films work around physical violence in a situation that would cause paranoia if it were real. Thrillers usually have heroes that are established throughout the film to fit this role, they are a match for the villain and the whole film builds up to the fight between the two. The main characters in horror films tend to appear much more helpless in the hands of a figure who is usually simply a twisted, heartless killer with a less constructed motive. Horror films are also usually alot less realistic. Thrillers draw you in to what the hero is going through in order to make you feel the mental torture that the character is experiencing.
The main excitement people experience through thrillers, is due to the suspense they create via such means as music that increases in intensity, (e.g. those famous violins in the shower scene of Hitchcock’s Psycho), and point of view shots to make you feel as if you are in the position the character is when they are, for example, searching the abandoned building where the villain was last seen. Suspense is used in this way to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, forever increasing their thirst for a violent, gory or revelatory scene. Sometimes this thirst is quenched, more often than not however, it is not. This is done only to increase the anticipation of the final clash between the hero and the villain.
At plugincinema.com,
Tomas Rawlings explains some of the main thriller conventions in his notes from a thriller writing course led by noted screenplay writer
Robert Mckee:
· Protagonist is at the mercy of the antagonist.
· Cheap surprise – an easy shock generated by an sudden unexpected action/movement/sound.
· False ending – where it appears the case is solved, but it is not; Speech in praise of the antagonist – often done by the protagonist, is used to build up the villain, even if the speech ultimately damns the villain.
· Make it personal – where the crime/plans draw in aspects of the protagonists life/emotions to change the plot from a professional action to a personal quest. This can be taken even further by taking it from personal quest to making the protagonist also become the victim.
· Theatre of the Mind – don’t show everything to the audience, force them to image some things
There are certain aspects of the main character's personalities and appearances that are constantly used in thrillers to allow us to easy identify who is ‘bad’, who is ‘good’ etc. The hero is usually a white male with an attractive, clean cut appearance. Increasingly, thrillers offer a postmodern anti-hero, a character who is flawed (and thus more realistic?) but who fulfills the role of the traditional hero, and is very often rebellious of the system that he is supposedly part of. He will break the rules, but only with moral justification, (Harry Callahan from the Dirty Harry films, for example). The standard hero is very down to earth and in touch with his feelings, he is controlled and he thinks ahead of anyone else in the film, such as his colleagues.
Villains are often simply the alter ego of the hero, they are the ultimate opposite, the perfect match. Therefore they are conventionally foreign, bearded, tattooed men. They are often facially disfigured or physically deformed, this is used an an outward projection of their internal psychological problems. The standard thriller villain is intelligent, he is calm and calculated, but not to the same extent of the hero, he has a trademark weapon/torture method and also has a weakness that the hero will expose, e.g. Dennis Hopper in Waterworld, Speed.
Obviously not every film contains characters with these exact characteristics. As time moves on and culture changes, so do conventions. We are beginning to see more females taking on these roles (e.g. Uma Thurman in Tarantino’s Kill Bill), the conventions are so firmly set in our minds by previous thrillers that using a non-conventional character can add an extra exciting twist to the story.
Typically, at the end of a thriller, good triumphs over evil, the hero outsmarts/captures/kills the villain, and all is well. The status quo is restored. Ideologically, thrillers usually allow us to sympathise with the hero, although increasingly this is not the case, e.g. ‘Usual Suspects.’