Research into the thriller genre

Research into the thriller genre

One of the earliest 'thrillers' was Harold Lloyd's comic Safety Last (1923), with the all-American boy performing a daredevil stunt on the side of a skyscraper. Edward Sutherland's crime/horror thriller Murders in the Zoo (1933) from Paramount starred Lionel Atwill as a murderous and jealous zoologist. And various horror films of the period, director Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March, and The Bat Whispers (1930), provided some thrills.

If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main characters is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.

Another closely-related genre is the horror film genre (e.g., Halloween (1978)), also designed to elicit tension and suspense, taking the viewer through agony and fear. Suspense-thrillers come in all shapes and forms: there are murder mysteries, private eye tales, chase thrillers, women-in-danger films, courtroom and legal thrillers, erotic thrillers, surreal cult-film soap operas, and atmospheric, plot-twisting psychodramas. Thrillers keep the emphasis away from the gangster, crime, or the detective in the crime-related plot, focusing more on the suspense and danger that is generated.