Types of Thrillers

SUB-GENRES

CONSPIRACY THRILLERS

In a conspiracy thriller you would often find a journalist or reporter un-covering extremely important evidence that leads to the outcome of the film. The journalists will often uncover historical evidence. This evidence or information will normally be the main topic of the film. The actors also adopt stereo typical roles, so the positive characters will perform good actions and the negative characters will do the opposite.

Examples of this genre will often be films such as the girl with the dragon tattoo. This film follows the typical genre to the letter. This film includes a journalist that uncovers a piece of evidence and then aides this operation. Another example of a conspiracy thriller is the Da Vinci Code. Both of these films are quite controversial.

Normally the key themes in these films are conspiracy and this can then lead on to ‘secret history’. Other aspects that you would expect in these films are lies deception, lies and propaganda. There are often conspiracies that are kept secret by the use of propaganda.

THE POLOTICAL THRILLER

These types of thrillers are clearly about politics however they are normally about political struggle. They can often involve incidents from one day and how a political party dealt with this. They can include foreign or national concerns. Some thrillers can also recall non-fictional past times such as the assignation of JFK or the emergence of the constitution. The Watergate scandal is another example of the story line of a political thriller.

Generally the main plots in these films should be political or governmental. It will often involve a man with no political status stirring something up and then it leading into a corruption. This links to the standard main plots of conspiracy thrillers.

Examples of political thrillers are the ghost writer JFK and the edge of darkness and state of play. All of these films contain some aspects of politics.

SPY FILMS

 

Spy films often contain action, romance and violence. They can be fantasy or fictional espionage. Just like political thriller, spy films can portray something that has already happened such as spying on the Germans in the Second World War.

Spy films will often be defined with a hero and a villain. The hero is stereo-typically the spy as we see in films such as James bond and the Bourne films. There will often also be romances. This also occurs in every single James bond film. Spy films also combine two sub-genres which are action and science fiction genres.

Spy films have been used for years. Examples of spy films are: James bond, the Bourne films, MI3, inspector gadget etc.

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS

These films will often include one character that will often be the main theme. There will also be some sort of delusion. This can often be represented in a dream or delusion through the eyes of someone else.

There will also often be enemies that the good characters have to defeat. This example applies top films such as inception. However in other films such as black swan it can take over the personality and take control of the actions of a character into making them do extremely severe actions which include killing themselves in some scenarios.

Suspense often comes from tension from two characters that have been taken over because a physiological effect.

Examples of physiological thrillers are: inception, black swan, seven pounds and audition.