Thriller Codes and Conventions

There are many codes and conventions for thriller films.

To begin with, the sound and editing are usually the main identifying feature. For editing, there are lots of quick cuts, and camera angle changes. The music gives tension when needed, but is passive for the rest of the scene.

Lighting wise, thrillers use darkness and shadows, to try and make the victims feel trapped. Mirrors and stairs are used lots in these sorts of thrillers.

Films that follow these conventions are films like
When A Stranger Calls and The Hills Have Eyes.




However there are films that do not follow the codes and conventions, such as phone-booth which is shot in broad daylight, with a man that cant be seen as the antagonist.

The characters of a thriller are usually similar as well. The main protagonist is more often that not a character who is lacking in some sort of moral way, perhaps he has comitted crime, adultery, lies. This person usually survives the horrors that befall them in thrillers, and have a changed, different view on their lives afterwards.

In the same ways that characters are similar, storylines are usually similar too. There is a main antagonist, or several main antagonists, and the reason behind the killings or hauntings or assault that occurs is revenge, or a psychotic man/woman who just wants to hurt people.























The locations of thrillers are usually very typical horror types, playing on the audiences fear of small spaces and making them feel claustrophobic, such as in The Hills Have Eyes, with the tunnels that hem the protagonists in, and in phonebooth, where the protagonist is trapped in a small secluded phone booth.