History of a Thriller - Miss Georgiou

Definition: (wikipedia)

Thriller is a genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as its main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror.

Task 1:

Timeline

1945- 

- An architect senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality. The guests at the country house encourage him to stay as they take turns telling supernatural tale.  
                                                                                                                                - It won the award for the most interesting screenplay in 1946, and was nominated for the best DVD classic film release.

- I think that it was the most popular thriller in the 1940's because it was the most scariest film of that time

A sequence from Dead of night:

I can tell straight away that this is a thriller film due to the eerie music that is playing in the background though out the sequence, as it got the middle, also the colours that are used are mainly dark and dull, this is an example an typical convention the audience would expect to see in the thriller genre. Towards the middle of the sequence it shows a man staring at a person in through their house, this tells me that possibly this man is an antagonist or possibly he knows the victim. After it shows this man entering the house, slowly creeping towards the woman, not being able to see his face and only showing the shadow of his body, this is conventional to a thinner film as it is typical to have a male antagonist and a female victim. The eerie music is also getting louder as the antagonist is getting closer to his victim, this builds tension upon the audience as we worry for the girl. The is how i know that this film is a thriller. 

Director: Bob Clark

1960-

- Isabella, a young model is murdered by a mysterious masked figure at a boarding house. When Isabella's boyfriend is suspected of the killing, her diary, which has incriminating evidence linking her to the killer, dissapears, the masked killer begins killing off all the models in and around the house to find the diary.

                                                                                                                               - In 2004, one of its sequences was voted No. 85 in "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" by the Bravo TV network.

- I think that it was the most popular thriller in the 1960's because of the murderers having a hidden identity and the intensity the film brings, not knowing whats going to happen next makes it frightening.

A sequence from Blood and Blacklace:

From the beginning of thus sequence, it shows me evidence to suggest that this film is a thriller from the Font style the film title, it gives me an impression of something i would expect to see in a thriller as the title looks as if is dripping, to me it makes me think of blood, you can also her non-diegetic sound in the background of eerie music. Towards the middle an actor then walks into a female victim dead of the floor, covered in blood, clearly telling the audience that the victim was murdered. It then shows a female and a male fighting, telling me that the male is an antagonist trying to prey on his next victim, which is conventional as all of the victims are female. It shows the female struggling for her life as she is screaming for help. Finally the antagonist is shown but has a hidden identity, this is a typical convention the audience expect to see from a thriller, it creates suspense as the audience are left wondering who and what the antagonist looks like. 

Director: Mario Bava

1984-

- On Elm Street, Nancy Thompson and a group of her friends are being tormented by a clawed killer in their dreams named Freddy Krueger. Nancy must think quickly, as Freddy tries to pick off his victims one by one. 

- This film was popular because it was nothing that anyone had ever seen before in that time, swell as it being a thriller i would class it as a horror aswell. The film is very intense and their are many parts that make you jump, this is my favourite thriller I've seen in the 19th century.

A sequence from A Nightmare on Elm Street:

The first thing i notice to tell me that this film is a thriller is that is it's a female victim alone in her house, this is what us as an audience would expect to see in a typical thriller film. You can then hear creepy diegetic sound of someone calling her name, with eerie music playing in the background, this is the most common element used to create suspense in a thriller, as she goes outside into her garden, the antagonist is them shown but his identity is hard to make out because of how dark it is, i then noticed that he has knifes as fingers on his hands, knifes are the mot common part of iconography that are used for victims to be murdered and it shows blood which is a common convention to show in a thriller to make it more realistic for the audience. The antagonist then chases her to her death, which shows her being ripped open, covering herself in blood. 

Director: Wes Craven

2000-

- Patrick Bateman, a young, well to do man working on wall street at his father's company kills for no reason at all. As his life progresses his hatred for the world becomes more and more intense. 

-This fim i think was a popular thriller because of how random it is. How a normal working man by day turns into a crazed serial killer at night.

A sequence from American Psycho:

At the start of this sequence, it seems as though a man is helping a homeless person sleeping in a dark alley, but then twists as the man may seem as though he is helping, but is in fact there to murder the homeless man, stabbing him to death. The first 10 seconds of this sequence gives away the fact its a thriller film. After this it shows the antagonist relaxing in the spa, this is not typical of what you'd expect the antagonist to be doing, coming across as a normal human being but in reality is a kurupt serial killer. 
Director: Mary Harron

2014-

- New York police officer Ralph Sarchie investigates a series of crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest, schooled in the rites of exorcism, to combat the possessions that are terrorizing their city.

-This film was released late August, i thought that this was one of the scariest thrillers that I've ever seen. What makes it a good thriller is that it has murder, possessive activity and thrill all at the same time, i found it very intense and powerful. 

This film informs me that this is highly likely to be a thriller as the titles give it away, this makes me think that the film could be demonic as it shows a priest holding a cross up. As i watch the trailer, it shows a women who ends up killing her child as a demonic character has entered her body, also most of this film is filed in the dark, with eerie music playing in the background quite often. The title 'Evil' is repeated quite a few times throughout the sequence, with a police officer and priest on the hunt to find the demonic charcter and set out to kill it. The director of this film is also the director of sinister which is another thriller film. By the end they perform an exorcism which ends up killing the demon before it could get to the police officers family.



Director: Scott Derickson


Task 2:

I think that The Purge made more money because it was much popular than the Snow piercer, so therefore they didn't sell no where near as many tickets as The Purge did.

It also dosent tell us the theatrical distributor of Snow piercer so I'm guessing it isn't a well known one whereas the purge is Univeral

Also the reason why i don't think the audience rated the snow piercer highly is because i didn't feel that it is a typical thriller film it is quite unusual, i feel that the audience loved The Purge as it was a typical thriller with masked men, guns, knifes and murder took place.

The Purge was rated 6.6/10 by the audience where as Snowpiercer was rated 7/10 by the audience which surprises me as The Purge made over $65 million dollars more selling's over 8 million more tickets.