What
is a Thriller Film?
Codes and Conventions of a thriller movie:
·
There is always a protagonist/victim and an
antagonist. This is because of the good vs. evil battle that you get in
thrillers.
·
There is always an enigma, which is when there is some
sort of mystery. This is used to keep the audience engaged with the thriller by
keeping them interested and wanting to know what the mystery is. In scream, the
enigma is who the killer is. The audience only find out right near the end, and
this causes the audience to try and work it out for most of the movie.
·
Low lighting is a convention of a thriller movie
because it helps to make the scene darker, which makes it seem more dangerous.
·
Someone will always get hurt in a thriller, either in
a psychological, emotional or physical way.
·
The female characters are conventionally the weaker
gender in thriller films and they are normally victims. This is shown in the
film, ‘The Strangers’ where Kristen is shown being weaker by panicking and not
being able to handle the pressure of someone knocking on the door.
·
Dramatic irony is used in thriller all the time. This
is when the audience will know that the victim is going to get hurt before the
victim knows it. This can be done through music, making the music more dramatic
and heavy.
·
Eerie, jumpy music is normally used to make the scene
more intense and help build a climax in a thriller.
·
The iconology is a thriller normally consists of
objects that can be used to hurt or protect the characters, such as; weapons,
chains, ropes, baseball bats or anything from the surroundings that can be used
to defend a person from an attacker.
·
Binary opposition is the battle of good vs. evil in a
thriller movie and you always have this or else there wouldn’t be any violence
or conflict in the thriller films at all.
·
Mirrors are sometimes used to show depth in a
character by having the good or evil person looking into a mirror and showing a
different side of them. This was used in
·
The setting of a thriller movie is conventionally in
dark, abounded places as these make the film seem more scary and sinister.
·
There is always some sort of chase scene in a thriller
movie between the protagonist and antagonist.
·
A big convention of a thriller movie is keeping the
identify of the antagonist hidden. This can help to keep the audience engaged
because they will want to try and work out who is hurting the other characters.
·
There is always the 3 S’s in a thriller film – Shock,
Surprise & Suspense. These are always in a thriller film and if one of
these are missing, then the thriller film will not fit the convention of a
thriller film.
Saw 1 Opening Sequence
You have defined the codes and conventions well, but you need to relate your points to opening thriller sequences to show further understanding of how these conventions are used
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