Conventions of a Thriller Film

Aliysa Khawaja

A thriller film provides the audience with thrills and keeps them at the edge of their

seats. Thrillers are normally about good Vs bad. Thrillers usually have the bad guy

Vs the good guy and the good guy wins the battle in the end usually. This type of

genre is created to build up tension in the film because of the excitement of not

knowing whether the bad guy will win or will it be the good guy.

Sub genres:

There are different genres of thriller, e.g. conspiracy thriller, crime thriller, disaster

thriller, Mystery thriller, Psychological thriller, religious thriller, supernatural thriller.

Themes of identity often play a big role in the thriller genre. Usually they do not

reveal the identity of the murderer/rapist/serial killer/bad guy until the very end. The

director and producers do not reveal the identity because it builds up suspense and

tension for the audience.

The makers of thriller films create their ideas around society’s biggest fears, they

select things which they know people fear and then use them in their thriller films. By

using these fears they know that it will attract an audience and also it will thrill the

audience and keep them interested. Thriller film producers often keep their

audiences waiting and also they creates twists through their films, this is so that their

audience will be surprised and thrilled at the same time, it will keep them wanting to

know more.