Mystery Thriller

THE HISTORY OF THE GENRE

THE CHOSEN GENRE Our chosen genre for our movie is a mystery-thriller, however

there is no technical sub-genre for this, however thriller movies have aspects of mystery and mystery movies have

elements of thriller movies.

WHAT?

Thriller is a genre that uses tension, suspense and excitement as its three main elements, they heavily play on the viewer's emotions such as anxiety, surprise and terror.Devices such as ‘red-herrings’ ‘plot-twists’ and ‘cliffhangers’ are widely used.Mystery-Thriller is a hybrid genre, these usually have some

sort of violent situation and a big loss that usually causes the protagonist to take action.

THRILLERS IN THE 1920S AND THE 1930S

‘Assassination’ 1927. It is a German made silent thriller film directed by Richard Oswald. It was based of the novel of the

same name by Vicki Baum.

‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ 1938 This is another example of a British thriller film, it was once again based off of the

mystery/thriller novel ‘The Norwich Victims’

THRILLERS IN THE 1940S

‘Gaslight’ 1944 This is a psychological mystery/thriller film, directed by the American director, George Cukor.

Films such as ‘The Spiral Staircase’ 1946, ‘The Lady From Shanghai’ 1948, and ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ 1948, revolved

largely around murder mysteries.

THRILLERS IN THE 1950S

Some of Alfred Hitchcock’s films started to have colour, such as ‘Dial M for Murder’ 1954 and ‘Catch a Thief’ 1955.

One of the most famous thrillers made was ‘Niagara’ 1953, it starred Marilyn Monroe which boosted the popularity of it.

Another famous thriller was ‘The Night of the Hunter’ 1955.

THRILLERS IN THE 1960S

An example of one of the most famous thriller movies of all time was ‘Psycho’ in 1960 directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Another example of a famous thriller is ‘Wait Until Dark.’ 1967 directed by Terence Young; it was about a victimised

blind women being harassed by a sadistic con-man. An example of a hybrid movie was the romantic thriller

‘Charade’ 1963 ; it had a lot of plot twists which shocked theaudience.

THRILLERS IN THE 1970S AND THE 1980S

Within these years, there was one film known for its theoretical possibilities, ‘Play Misty For Me’ 1971 - was about

a fan who was deeply obsessed with their idol. This was also the time that director Steven Spielberg became known for his film ‘Duel’ 1971 which followed the characters

of a reckless truck driver and a salesman. In Brian De Palma’s films, he was known for killing off the main character, switching perspectives, and they included

themes of guilt, obsession and even paranoia.

THRILLERS IN THE 1990S

Within this decade, thrillers were started to take on a more psychological route, such as the film ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’

1999 and ‘Open Your Eyes’ 1997.

Thriller movies started to become even more popular as more and more people wanted to see films like this, as they heavily

played on emotions that films in the genre of comedy and romance (for example) would not.

THRILLERS IN THE 2000S TO THE PRESENT DAY

Thrillers began to add more aspects from the horror genre such as more sadistic violence, brutality, terror and body counts. The

2005 film ‘House of Wax’ for example, there are only two of the maincharacters left alive. One of the characters die when a pole goes through her head, and

another gets coated in hot wax. In the 2001 film ‘Jeepers Creepers’ became one of the most

well known horror movies of the decade due to its

disturbing factors. Nude corpses are seen with several body parts removed,

these can be quite disturbing and some of the deaths are violent and

graphic as ‘the Creeper’ cuts someone's head off and is seen ripping their tongue from

their mouth with his teeth.

Thriller films have changed over the decades, one of the reasons being that technology has become much more

advanced therefore the special effects look better. This means that certain events can look much more interesting.

However, since we do not have a large budget (or any sort of budget) we are rather limited on our special effects being of

both visual and make-up. So we will have to reply on the acting and the editing processes to make up for the lack of

special effects.