Thriller codes and conventions

Thriller films have various codes and conventions, that make them recognisable as a Thriller film. An example of this would be through the use of deep background music. This music will normally build up and create tension amongst the audience. The tension, or suspense, is something that the audience will expect when going to watch a thriller film, as it has become such a recognisable convention of thriller films. The audience will expect to be put in situation where they are watching a main character in danger, for example.

Another convention of thriller films are that they are normally set in an urban area. The fact that they are set in an urban area, shows that more people are in danger and that whoever they are looking for could easily be lost in a crowd. It also gives the sense of terrorism as if there something happens and gets put of control, buildings could easily collapse. This gives the sense of unease as the audience watch, even if the film is unrelated to terrorism.

Weapons are used in almost every thriller film, and are the first thing the audience expect to see when watching the film. As thriller films are made up of a variation of crime, there will always have to be a weapon. The bad guy (who normally has psychological issues) will normally carry something like a knife, and will find a way to torture somebody, whereas, the good guy (normally some sort of police officer) will carry a gun. This will then show that the bad guy is insane and enjoys killing people, whereas the police officer will want to kill instantly with a gun shot, and doesn't enjoy dealing with death, instead won't kill the bad guy immediately, with the aim to interrogate, and then imprison them.

As mentioned previously, there is normally a psychopathic person, with a desire to kill. This is apparent  in the majority of all thriller films. In terms of Todorovs narrative theory, when the psychopath is introduced is where there is the disruption to the equilibrium. The psychopath, will normally kill and disrupt the equilibrium (where everything should be). This is then followed by the recognition and the repair stages, all leading to the restoration, where peace, is normally recovered (or temporarily recovered) back to the equilibrium.

These are just a few conventions of thriller films, along with many more unmentioned. However some thriller films don't just follow the codes and conventions of thriller films, but also show other conventions, of other film types which act as cross genres, and have conventions from other genres included within them, called hybrids or sub-genres. These could be crime-thrillers, comedy-thrillers, action-thriller etc. These can be effective as proven by successful examples including The Sixth Sense which is a supernatural-thriller for example. This will be something I will be looking to do and will hope to include something like this when making my film opening.