Summary of whole films

Stock settings

In any genre of film, setting is a very important aspect of it. It helps to create certain moods and feeling for both the characters and the audience.

·         Abounded houses were something that proved to be a very dominant setting through-out the genre. I found that it reflected the ways in which the characters felt at certain stages of the films- that sense of being not wanted, alone. This helped the audiences feeling towards the characters and helped to understand their state of minds easier. 

·         A number of the settings reflect the titles of the films. For example: Exam was set in an examination room with eight small desks. This helps the audience to understand the meaning of the title.

Stock characters

Stock characters are an important aspect of the genre of any film; therefore this was a very important aspect that we had to identify.

·         Villain- There was usually an element of unknown in regards to it wasn’t always obvious that the certain character or characters were the villain until the end of the film. E.g. Exam- the man, who was revealed at the end of the film to be the villain, was the character who throughout the film was helping the other characters. This made the villain seem even more evil, which is typical in Thrillers. When the villain was a woman, she was usually seen as being psychotic and unstable. For example: Orphan- the girl in the film, who was the villain, was the character who immediately was seen as being psychotic and dangerous. But in the majority of the films we watched, the villains were usually male.

·         Hero- The heroes in the genre like many of the other genres of film, were usually the main characters in the film. The heroes in film differ from what they are heroic for. For example: the mother in Changeling could be seen as a hero, because she never gave up her search for her son and she fought against the FBI for what was right. But on the other hand, the hero in Exam who is one of the women, is heroic because she didn’t really do anything other than save the life of one of the candidates.

·         Victim- The victim in the films were sometimes the heroes, who then turned the bad thing that happened to them into something positive. For example: the mother in Changeling, turned the negative aspect of losing her son into something positive by making other people aware of the goings on in the FBI. The majority of the victims who aren’t the main character tend to be victims of a murder, which is a key theme in the genre.   

Themes

The majority of the themes were similar throughout the films, but there were some obvious differences depending on the specific sub genre.

·         Death and murder were constant themes throughout all the films we watched. This is a common aspect in the genre, therefore, it was no surprise that it occurred so many times in the films we watched. 

·         Love and passion was also a theme in some of the films. It mainly occurred in the films with the victim or the villain for example: in the film Orphan, the villain falls in love with her adopted father- this is an important aspect in the rest of the film, because it almost helps justify some of her actions.

·         Revenge was also a theme that appeared in many of the films that we watched. It differed from the villain wanting revenge on the victim or vice versa. Revenge is something negative, therefore, because the genre is quite negative, it helps add to that sense of negativity that you get from thrillers.

Iconography

Iconography is important in any film, because it helps the audience to recognise the genre of the film by certain aspects that typically appear in the genre. The iconography in the thriller genre is usually negative and violent; therefore, we weren’t expecting anything different.

Fast cars were used in a number of the films we watched. This could connote a sense of the film being quite fact pasted constantly changing. For example: in the inner ring, the film starts with a series of historical images and films and then there is an immediate straight cut to a high impact car chase.

  

Flickering lights are also commonly used in the genre. They help to create suspense within scenes. For example: in the films Gothika and the Covenant, lights are used at some of the more intense scenes in the film to add to that scary atmosphere.

Medical equipment would obviously be used in a medical thriller, but in the film Awake, there is a scene where the doctors are inserting a knife into the main character’s chest. The camera is completely forced on the knife throughout the whole scene, almost trying to emphasise the fact that this is an important aspect of the film.