First research on Thriller films

Lewis Jordan

First research on Thriller films.

I started my research by searching Thriller films on Netflix and ended up watching a film called 'Hush'.
It is a Thriller based around a deaf women who has to fight off a masked killer who appears at her window. I found this film to have all the characteristics of a good Thriller film: the brave and strong protagonist, the psychotic, evil antagonist, dark and secluded setting, shocking plot twists and scenes that have you on the edge of your seat. Below is the trailer for this film.

After looking further in to sub-genres I decided this film is a Psychological Thriller because the main protagonist has to fight off a masked man who plans to mess with her head before he tries to kill her, the protagonist is then forced to try and outwit the killer which proves a tough task as she is unable to hear. Although the film is obviously low budget as evidenced by the lack of actors and the use of only one location, I enjoyed watching it and would recommend it to anyone doing similar research.

After this I watched some movie trailers from films I had not seen, I also varied the sub genre to look at a variety of different Thriller films.

First, I watched the trailer for a film called 'Out of the dark' I gathered from the trailer that it is your usual horror film where a family move in to a new house that just happens to be inhabited by supernatural forces that begin to ruin the families life. I can see that features of a Horror-Thriller include: jump scares, multiple protagonists and in most cases a supernatural antagonist. Also in the trailer there is 29 black out shots to build suspense. The trailer for 'Out of the dark' is below.




Next up I watched a trailer for a film called ' 7 minutes' this is an action thriller based around three men who are under threat after failing to make money that they owe to a drug lord, because of this they have to rob a bank to obtain the money needed. From the trailer I gathered that extra pressure was one of the bank robbers as there is an insight into him and he has a wife and a daughter he has to provide for. This differed from the trailer for the horror thriller because it was fast paced from start to finish and the storyline was revealed from the start, whereas in the horror trailer it started off slow and picked up the pace but the movies story was not clear until quite a way through the trailer. This trailer showed a lot of action and nail-biting tension as it made us wonder if our protagonists will succeed. In this trailer there are 14 black out shots which again intend to build suspense and make us think about what happens next before we see the full film. The trailer for '7 minutes' is below.





The third and final trailer I watched for this research was 'alien outpost'  which is a sci-fi thriller, in this film there is an alien invasion and Earth is in grave danger and small groups of troops fight back and risk their lives to try and save their families and the planet. The trailer follows one set of troops and shows a lot of action while at the same time holding back when it comes to showing the aliens in the film. This is probably to get the audience thinking about the aliens and the form they take in the full film. The trailer starts off slowly and builds up towards the end similar to the 'out of the dark' trailer. I think the sci-fi thriller trailers are similar to the horror ones but with less jump scares throughout. This trailer had 8 black out shots which is quite a lot less than the other 2 trailers. Surprisingly the trailer had a sense of realism to it because of the voiceover from the one soldier from the start. The trailer for 'alien outpost is below.



To summarise, I can see that all types of thriller films are meant to be: exciting and suspenseful. All three of the trailers feature several black out shots which are used to build suspense and make the audience think about what is to follow. After my first lot of research I am beginning to understand what goes into making a trailer. Also after watching the film 'hush' I can see what aspects need to be in a Thriller to make it a really good movie.