Conventions of the Thriller Genre

By Maximilian Mayo-Dell

In Psycho (Hitchcock 1960), the shower scene uses a key convention of a thriller which has now been used throughout the film industry for 55 years. the sound is essential to highlight the mood of the characters and to create a significant part of the film. it would often start at small paves and then build up to make the shots more dramatic to the audience. This was the use of the high pitch "EEEE"sound created by violins to produce a suspenseful and tense atmosphere.

Another convention used in this scene is the cinematography. This would usually contain extreme close up shots of the character to show their emotions, also of the props to convey the actions in the scene and close up of the background (shown left of the drain) to create suspense and a sense of knowing to what has happened to the view without having to actually see it which creates more suspense and tension. Also he antagonist character would usually be quickly cut to hide his/her identity which is also helped by the shadow and low lighting onto the character.

 In The Sixth Sense (Shyamalan 1999), another convention shown is the two different types of characters, the protagonist and the antagonist. this is shown in the right where the protagonist (young boy) is scared and looking away from the window where the antagonist is looking at him and the camera is focused upon her. this is another way of creating suspense throughout the film by making the protagonist in danger and keeping the audience on edge.

In addition to this, Camera angles play a big part in the Thriller genre. the low levels of framing and the high camera angles are used to show who has the power in the scene, for example in the right photo we can see that even though the boy is closer to the camera, because it is looking up at them it makes the audience feel that those two characters have more authority over us but it can also be shown that the man is "controlling" the young boy and is more dominant.


 In The Dark Knight (Nolan 2008), the use of lighting played a key convention as it used mostly low key lighting and the set being at night to create a more sinister and tense tone. We can see that low key lighting was used in the scene with the joker (left) as it produces a sharp contrast between the dark and light areas on the screen to suggest to the audience him being the villain as a menacing tone is set.

In Editing, jump cuts are short, fast paced clips are used to create tension and build up suspense within the scene. in the scene when the batman interrogates the joker, the editing is extremely fast to keep the audience on edge as we now have the hero of the film finally having the villain trapped in his grasp but it still keeps the audience vigilant for any twists as the editing doesn't make it seem that the conflict is over.