History Of Thriller Films - Miss Georgiou

The thriller genre itsself is primarily known to create apprehension, assumption and confusion all tied in with nerve wracking tension it creates an atmosphere that automatically has its audience hooked, keeping them on the edge of their seat as the plot builds toward the climax. The thriller genre is so favoured with audiences as it has many sub genres within it.

Thriller Timeline

1931- '77 Park Lane' 

77 Park Lane is a 1930's British crime thriller directed by Albert de Courville. The movie takes place at an up town market inside a gambling house in Park Lane where a young lady attempts to save her brother from ruin while trying to save her own love affair. This film is easily despicable to the audience as a thriller by just looking at the poster. The codes and conventions typically thriller posters are designed with dark colors , grey, black and white. These colours all have negative connotations the black connotes aloof or evil. Most thriller villains wear black which symbolizes why black is used in the poster. The white background in the poster may imply innocence and purity within the plot, however the color white shows dirt and therefor is more difficult to keep clean than other colours which may reflect how the woman is not as innocent as she makes out to be. The shadows used in the poster make the characters seems mysterious which leaves the audience expecting for something dark to happen.

1946- 'Notorious'

An American thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, is a dark twisted thriller where a woman who 'knows to much' finds herself in grave danger. In the poster the writing looks quite ridged which may foreshadow an event about to take place. The use of the color yellow on the woman's blouse suggests purity and her innocence the yellow also ties in with the title of the movie showing she is the main female lead. The key on the other hand has both the main characters inside it suggesting that the 'key' has brought them closer together, the key could represent something being hidden behind closed doors. something that may be revealed during the movie which for the audience creates suspicion. After watching a small clip from the film, the non dietetic sound made it easy for em to recognized the eertness of the scene. After the suspense building music began it was apparent that the woman knew something bad was going to happen in the wine cellar. This made the audience fearful for her as we were unaware of the events about to take place.

1950
In the 1950's Alfred Hitchcock added Technicolor to his thrillers, he used exotic locations and well known stars. This is the p
eriod in his life where he reached the peak of his career witch such a success in flims like 'strangers on a train' which is about two commuters who trade murders with each other. Neither the less there were non Hitchcock thrillers this included films such as Niagara (1953) by Henry Hathaway in which the glamorous Marilyn Monroe plots to kill her husband.
Niagara is an American thriller which was unlike film noirs around the 1950's it was filmed in a three strip Techicolour and was Fox's biggest box office hits of the year.
 It is about a couple who honeymoon on  Niagara falls and find their booked cabin already occupied. The couple then plan a murder around the event. The film has been described as 'an ample share of shadows and styles' The subtext on the poster makes it easily identifiable to the audience as a thriller as 'raging torment of emotion' catches your attention and immediately we can tell its not a happy film or a comedy.


1960
One of the most famous thriller films scenes in the history of thriller was made in the 1960's in the film 'Psycho' the scene is where the dark silhouette of a motherly figure brandishes a knife towards the camera. After Hitchcock's classic films of the 1950's he produced his most horrifying thriller and is still to this day considered one of Hitchcock's best films continually being praised by film critics. It is also ranked in 'one of the greatest films of all times'. This challenged a whole new level of violence, deviant behaviour and sexual acceptance in thriller films. It is also the earliest example of the slasher film genre.




From the 1920's to the 1960's all thriller films contain a similar plot, non diegetic music was composed especially for the movies (this changes towards the 90's) directors preferred to use a build up of suspense and  tension within the overall plot rather than just surprising the audience with events and plot twists.


1970
This decade opened up with a violent start to the thriller genre, the 70's opened with Hitchcock's first British movie in about 20 years, it was rated R (18) for its violent approach to an explicit strangulation. The movies made in the 1970's reflect the grim mood of the decade. A consistent theme of thrillers  in the 70's was the fear of children.'Frenzy' a psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock is considered as the greatest film made before his death. It was based on a novel written by Arthur La Bern. The plot is based around a cereal killer in the middle of London. In the opening scenes references to two serious murders are made in real life including that of Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock filmed 'Frenzy' in London after decades of making films in the US. Hitchcock hired a composer to help with all the musical elements of the film including non diegetic sound.

1980
Thriller films In this era sway closer to the horror genre, adding much more violence and gore to the mix although they were still able to see a clear difference between the two genres. 'Dressed to kill'
is an American erotic crime thriller. It centres around the murder of a housewife and a case involving a prostitute who was there when the murder took place. By the poster the codes and conventions make it easily recognisable as a thriller film as it uses dark colours which carry negative connotations such as death and mystery. The red in the poster symbolises lust, love or danger. The point of the 'K' is sharp representing a knife which signifies danger and foreshaddows that the knife may be the murder weapon.

1990

In the 1990's 'Misery' a film directed by Rob Reiner was the first thriller made in its century. The film stood at 12th on the top 100 scariest movie moments. This film broader lined thriller and horror. In 1992 a film called 'The hand that rocks the cradle' came out. Just like many thrillers at the time it also boarder lined thriller and horror. The thriller genre did not differ much from the time of Hitchcock although it did advance and evolve from the clear cut thriller definition. Between the years 1992 and 1999 trees was little progression within the thriller genre. Although the film 'Talented Mr Ripley' brought back the popularity of the thriller genre once had.


 2000
Vanilla Sky, is 2001American thriller directed by Cameron Crowe. It is the English re-make of the spanish film 'Open your eyes'. The movie is described as 'an odd mixture of science fiction romance and reality'. Straight from a prison cell where David Aames has been charged with murder, the main character tells his background to a court psychologist.  David portrays himself to be a wealthy owner of a well known publishing firm. His crazy ex attempts to kill them both in a car crash his ex 'Julie' dies but David survives yet his face is disfigured. When David gets drunk with old friends one night he gets hopelessly drum and his friends Sophia and Brian leave him to wander the street. The next morning David is woken up by Sophia, who admitted she felt guilty for abandoning him the night before. From then on the two continue to see eachother other after David gets his face repaired from the injury. A man tells David that he can control the world and everyone in it. A few days later David pays a visit to Sofia's apartment where he finds Julie. Angry and upset he suffocates Julie and is later on referred to a mental home.


2010
Shutter Island is a 2010 American psychological thriller Leonardo DiCaprio stars as 'Teddy Daniels' who is taking research on a psychiatric facility on shutter island.  Shutter Island is located in Boston Harbour as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a patient who was taken there for drowning her three children. After Teddy's arrival a storm brews which prevents him from leaving the island for a few days. Daniel's finds the staff challenging and the main psychiatrist refuses to hand over the medial records for the patients. He is also barred from searching ward C and the lighthouse as it had already been searched. When a patient is being questioned by Daniel's she takes the notepad and scribbles the letters R.U.N. The unwelcoming and cold feeling Teddy gets from the hospital starts to give him headaches. These migraines also cause4 him to have unsettling dreams. As Daniel's and his partner continue their research they find that a missing patient has been found by staff with no
explanation. After becoming suspicious they decide to break into ward
C, and meets another patient in confinement. The patient warns Daniels that the head psychiatrist is preforming illegal experiments on its patients after finding Daniels finds a body hiding in a cave who claims to be the missing patient (the woman who drowned her children) she exclaims all about the hospitals intentions and describes she too was just a visitor until she tried to alert the authorities of the hospitals behaviour aqnd to prevent her from leaving the doctors made a fake profile of her being a patient. Leaving the woman, Daniel returns to the hospital where Cawley claims that Daniel's arrived on the island on his own with no evidence of his partner ever being there. Confused and panicked Daniel's breaks into thye lighthouse sure that they had taken his partner to be experimented on. At the top of the lighthouse he finds Cawley waiting for him.


Task two
The most popular ranked thriller film is Hannibal it was released on the 2nd of September 2001 and made $165,092,268 in its opening weekend. The film is a sequel to the 1991 academy award winning 'the silence of the lambs'. The film was set 10 years ager the silence of the lambs and 'Hannibal' gets captured by a surviving victim. It is set in both Italy and the USA. Hannibal drew attention because of the violence and broke box office records in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom in February 2001. Hannibal grossed $58 million (US) in its opening weekend within 3,230 screens. When it was released, it was the biggest opening box office for an 18/R rated film. The film spent 3 weeks at the top of the box office charts. The target audience for this film is 18 and older it contains sex and nudity, there are references made to pedophilia, there are naked women presented and dead bodies with no clothes on. The violence and gore is intense for example and man peels off kid face and feeds it to a dog. The pst horrid part if when Hannibal opens up the skull of a man, who is alive and fully conscious and makes him eat his own brain. The top of the mans head is fully exposed and very gory for an extend amount of time. Due to the amount of frightening and intense scenes this films target audience is for the older viewers.
Saw II is an American horror film, a sequel to 2004's Saw. The film features 'Jigsaw' being apprehend by the police, but trapping the arresting officer in one of his own games while showing another 8 people including the police officers son. After the financial success of the first Saw, a sequel was immediately prepared. Saw II was released on october 28th 2005 and despite many negative reviews it was a sucsess with opening takings of $31.9 million and grossing $88 million in the US. It is placed 6th on the box office ranking 5 bellow Hannibal. It was released on the weekend of Halloween across 2,949 theatres. In its second weekend it fell by 47% making $16.9 million. It lasted 70 days in the cinema before it was taken out. The film received mixed reviews from critics, they praised the acting but not the grousom nature of the story. Its mainly the gore in the film that attracts most of its viewers also they fact its keeps the audience keeps the audience of the edge of their seat.

 The cell is a 2000 American psychological thriller film where a child psychologist is an expert in experimental treatment for coma patients, when a serial killer falls into a coma before he FBI can locate his final victim, Agent Peter Novak persuades the child psychologist to enter the killers mind and find the ware bouts of his next victim. On the 18th August 2000 the film was released to the ,public it made $17,515,050 in the opening weekend it is ranked at number 10 on the box office thriller ranking. it was shown in 2,476 cinemas. Due to the complicated and twisted plot, the cell attracts an audience that are adults its also got an 18 age certification.

Conclusion
After completing this blog entry this task has developed my knowledge of how Thriller films have changed throught the years. It was has also enlightened my knowledge of typical plots and narratives of the thriller gene giving me a few ideas of my own which I may use to help me with my thriller sequence. I have been inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock who has managed to create many thriller scenes that will be remembered an example of this is the shower scene in his film 'pycho'. My aim is to create a sequence that will be remembered.