Thriller

1. Thriller

2. Thriller movies couldn’t hit the public until the start of 1920s as the industry was short of technological advancement. The editing of these movies were very unique because of the quick cuts and short clips which made the movies enjoyable and interesting. Thriller movies in the early 1920s weren’t as good as they could have been due to the lack in technological field behind the creation of these movies. Medias such as sound play a huge part in movies of such genre and since there wasn’t any sound in these early movies, it lessened the potential of those movies. The first movie that sort of falls in this category is ‘Safety Last’ which was released in 1923. The main character or the protagonist in this movie faces many problems when he has to make the climb to the top of a tower. This storyline makes the movie more intense and interesting as there is element of suspense that builds up as the movie progresses. Alfred Hitchcock is considered as the master of the suspense thriller. His first silent movie ‘ The Lodger ‘ which debuted in 1926 is about a murderer that targets blonde women. This antagonist is in London where he rents a room in the house of a family whose daughter is a blonde model. The twist in this storyline is that this blonde model is a seeing a man who turns out to be a detective assigned to the murderer’s case. This suspenseful storyline makes the audience very interested in the movie and it makes the movie a whole lot intense. Early stages § 1920s

3. § 1930s - 1940s - Here are some links to articles on the real life stories in which the two films mentioned were based upon. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/kurten/index_1.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Elizabeth_Wilson The Film ‘M’ based on the real life story of the ‘Vampire of Dusseldorf’ • Thrillers in the 30’s and 40’s were mostly involving murder schemes and some were based on real life events. This was due to the significance of the story on the audience which shocked them. Film directors and producers began creating their own visionary of the story as they began to see how murders and other similar stories were effecting audiences. • Two films to name are:‘M’ (1931) - The film's story was based on the life of serial killer Peter Kurten (known as the 'Vampire of Dusseldorf').‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943) - Hitchcock's own personal favorite and based upon the actual case of a 1920s serial killer known as 'The Merry Widow Murderer'.These were both chilling stories which shocked audiences because of the links it had with the real life events. • Hitchcock's films began to develop during this era and many cinematic techniques were introduced for the first time by Hitchcock himself. These were the first British 'talking picture' - Blackmail (1929), the extreme zoom shot of the key in Notorious (1946) and the glowing glass of milk in Suspicion (1941). These techniques created suspense and a deeper reaction from the audience watching which is what most thrillers were trying to gain.

4. This was the beginning of colourful yet the same dark and moody films. More and more movies of this genre were produced which lifted the audience with fear and excitement. Alfred Hitchcock’s manipulation of audience’s emotions made him a puppeteer through his movies. Viewers were associated with representation of reality facing the character which made it easier for them to relate to and be more involved. Alfred would often interlink a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films which were frowned upon; this made his films interesting as the audience were introduced to this new breed of sexual thriller films that played with audience’s desires and fears. Psycho (1960), was the first psychoanalytical movie and a very famous one too. The antagonist is a psyched character who suffered from the loss of his mother who he wanted to be with him so he developed this ‘alternate personality’ in which he behaved and thought like his mother. This was a very well thought movie with a great/unexpected twist. The audience are caught up with the antagonist’s psycho mother throughout the movie but at the end, much to their knowledge, the audience discover about the antagonist’s crazy secret. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9klJA1JMbM The above is the trailer of the movie Psycho. It is a very different and unique kind of trailer compared to what we see in the media today. The trailer basically starts with the famous director, Alfred Hitchcock, who acts as a guide/narrator to the audience. He lures us the audience, to this story that is the movie itself and takes us to the location of the shooting and talks about the incidents that took place. This shows how a thriller trailer differs to other genres at the time. § 1950s - 1960s

5. § 1970s - 1980s • Thrillers in the 70’s & 80’s were a lot more violent and this is especially seen in the very famous thriller ‘Jaws’ (1975) which was based on real life shark attacks in 1916. • These films would have been more violent due to audience expectations. The gang culture and crime had recently erupted in the 60’s so audiences wanted to see more violence in films. This also connects with the release of ‘The Godfather’ (1972) which was a violent film in itself and made film directors create more violence in their genres, such as thriller. • After Psycho (1960), Hitchcock wanted to take a step forward and in 1972, the thriller ‘Frenzy’ was given an R rating because of a vicious and explicit strangling scene. This shows that Hitchcock wanted to create more drama and add more violence to his thrillers as the years passed. • The first film about a fan being disturbingly obsessed with their idol was released in 1971 and was called ‘Play Misty For Me’. This was the first thriller of its kind and was played by a leading female role. • By the end of the 80’s, Dead Calm (1989) brought a new beginning to thriller genre. It was based on the elements of possession where the protagonist characters had to escape from the antagonist who had them in their grasp. This sparked a start to this type of thriller in the early 1990’s.The poster on the right is for the film Dead Calm. It shows how the recent outbreak of violence and murder in film is being portrayed in the poster with the over exaggeration of the colour red to represent blood and death.

6. § 1990s - Present • Thrillers from the 90’s to present day focus on many forms of mental illness, obsession and violence. • Thrillers also began to see the start of an agent tracking down the antagonist character. A massive thriller released in 1991 was ‘Silence of the Lambs’ which was about an FBI agent dealing with a cannibalistic psychiatrist. Another similar film released in 1995 was ‘Se7en’ which was about two agents tracking down a serial killer who related his murders to the seven deadly sins. • During the present time most thrillers have conventions related to the horror genre such as blood, gore and mass murder. Many thrillers today would be closely related to a horror but a huge twist to shock the audience would change the outcome of the plot and be seen more as a true thriller. • Thriller films that closely relate to the conventions seen in the thriller genre today are ‘Eden Lake’ (2008), ‘Shutter Island’ (2010) and ‘The Butterfly Effect’ (2004) Shot of the film Eden Lake showing violence and torture in todays thriller films. The Silence of the Lambs had many twists to the plot. It was very shocking for the audience and has made it a very well known thriller film.

7. The Lodger film poster, shows the movies title and sub-title in a bright red colour making it stand out from the rest of the poster which is black and white. The poster is in portrait form with little text and images. There is only one image from the film of the characters and a man in large coat and a hat facing towards a wall. This tells the audience little about the storyline, like there is a couple who is possibly being targeted by a unknown antagonist. This was one of the earliest posters of movies in thriller genre. The usage of minimal text and images alongside suitable colours makes this poster very interesting because it has element of ‘mystery’ and fear. This poster is of the movie Psycho (1960) from the director Alfred Hitchcock. The poster contains images of the main characters in the movie, the movie title, the director and the director’s quote and finally a little comment that encourages the viewers to watch the movie. The poster portrays the victim in the movie to be innocent by having a semi naked image of the victim. This makes the viewers interested in the movie as it intrigues them. The layout of the poster is landscape which is different. The art in the poster isn’t like a typical photograph but a cartoon styled images. The victim’s image is the largest one and stands out whilst the antagonist is only shown with his face and hands to represent the sinister side of him. This poster contains more colours, text and contents than the previous poster. It shows how this poster is more developed in terms of the amount of contents, quality of images and extras like the director’s quote. Shutter island is a movie from the 21st century. It falls in the thriller genre of movies. The poster for this movie is very interesting because the contents are so good and go well together. The main character of the movie is at the top of this portrait style poster. The characters face is shown in a light created by a lit match stick. There is a quote/sentence that reads ‘Someone is missing’ as it goes with the movie’s storyline. Below the character’s image is an island where the movie is set; it’s a prisoner island. Below that is the name of the starring actor and below that, the name of the movie in a bright red colour making it easily noticeable from the dark poster. At the bottom lies names of directors, producers and so on with the release month at the very end, also in bright red. This poster is a lot more different and effective compared to previous generations of posters in my opinion. It portrays the movie to be mysterious and dark. Evolution of Film Posters

8. The more advanced move site for Shutter Island (included trailer and downloads) www.shutterisland.com The very basic titanic movie site released for the movie. www.titanicmovie.com Evolution of Film websites • Websites were not introduced to the public until 1990. The introduction of Web 2.0 allowed users to be more interactive and create their own websites and share information. Businesses realised that this introduction was big among the public. This was also great for the distributors of film as well because it allowed them to market their films online and reach a wider population due to a large amount of the world having internet access. • Websites are used by films to market an upcoming film so that users can watch trailers and see snippets of the upcoming movie. Early film websites were a lot less detailed and were mainly used so that viewers could find out more information about the movie. The titanic website launched for the movie was very basic. It was plain with a few images and some links to the story of the titanic and wallpapers could use for their desktop. • Now websites are bigger and help to market the film a lot further. They include animation and may have interactive games which users can play.

9. Influences • This research has educated me by showing the early stages, the beginning of the thriller movies and its development throughout the 20th century to the thriller movies of the current generation. Movies such as ‘Safety Last’ which lacked some medias such as sound and were classified as ‘Silent’ movies that got on to influence the production of movies like Psycho where the element of suspense was still there but it was more interesting and effective with the narration. This development in movies of this genre looks pretty small but it was a giant leap for movies of this genre as portrayed by the famous ‘Psycho (1960)’s trailer where Alfred Hitchcock is the narrator who takes the audience on a short journey to explore the setting whilst being informed with the incidents that take place in the movie. The use of sound made the movies more sinister and dark with non-diagetic sounds adding to the mystery atmosphere. The more current movies of this genre have almost the same conventions of movies from previous generations but with newer elements such as gore and more violence to play with the audience’s emotions. • The research also provided information on development of other medias such as posters and websites. Posters were simple and to the point in the beginning with low quality images and minimal text but as it developed, it got more modern with the time and technology. The quality of images and fonts, also cartoon images were adapted into posters to create unique looks and attract more viewers. The modern days posters rely on digital editing to create very realistic and eye catching posters. Also, the posters are more creative and consistent with the genre of the movie so that the viewer can see the relation between the poster and the movie. • There have been websites for movies since no more than just over a decade. The early website for the movie Titanic shows how basic they were when compared to the Shutter Island one. The Titanic movie site lacked images, design, sound, and interactivity. • All these information from the research will help in the development of our movie trailer, website homepage and the poster.

10. Bibliography • www.google.com/images • www.imdb.com • www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)