Research into history of thriller films - Miss Georgiou -

In this blog I am going to discuss what a thriller is, and how thrillers have adapted throughout the years and how they have become more advance in the present day. A thriller is a novel, play or movie with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage. (https://www.google.com/search?safe=vss&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB553GB553&es_sm=91&q=define+thriller&btnG=Search)

Summary- how will your research help you with planning your own film?

Hitchcock's  'PSYCHO' came out in the year 1960 and was the biggest hit of the decade. 'Pyscho' was a film well a head of it's time due to firstly the main character dying within the first 20 minutes of the film, and the amount of flesh shown in a scene where the main character is going to have a shower and is murdered. It was the undone thing to show any violence or a lot of skin, but Hitchcock went against this because he's career was slowly fading, and he needed a film that would put him at the top of the hierarchy. After this film, Hitchcock was known as the master of suspence and thrillers and built his career back to the top of the thriller world. He was in control.

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In 1979 Ridley Scott produced the film 'Alien'. In the film you can see that with in 19 years (since Hitchcock released PYSCHO in 1960) that effects used within thrillers had advanced to a new level. Ridley Scott had created a new, more advanced way of films. Technology had developed so rapidly over 19 years that the thriller had become so much more believable. Ridley Scott has made some of the most memorable thriller films of his time, 'Alien' being one of them. A reason why it is also more believable is because there is a wider range of things accepted within society, more violence was allowed. Violence and gore has become a big part of a lot of thrillers, which allows the audience to feel haunted by the disturbing images in order to remember the film. An example of this is in 'Alien' when the alien comes out of a man stomach, it is gory and disturbing which at that point during the 1970's would have played on the audiences mind. By Ridley Scott doing this and creating this scene, it allowed the audience to remember it.

 

A great example of also how films have adapted throughout time is in the film 'The Shining' directed by  Stanley Kubrick in 1980. This scene in the film is famously known by the line 'Here's Johny!" these famous lines that Stanley Kubrick used demonstrates how his work was noticed and how he was at the top of the hierarchy within thriller genre films.Kubrick maintained his high place within the thriller genre's, evidence that suggests this is purely the fact that this film is still known to be one of the greatest thrillers in English thriller history.

Looking into the 90's thrillers film. The hand that rocks the cradle is a classical thriller, it contains minimal images of open violence or disturbance, however it is enough to stay on the audiences mind

because the situation of the thriller is something that can happen and creates a sense of reality. The director of this film is called Curtis Hanson and the film was produced 1992. Curtis Hanson had the ability to present a real life situation and put a dark twist on it, enabling the audience to remember the film and feel threatened by it, which proves that no taboo things were done in order to make the film memorable, but the twist of it was which makes it so unique and stand out particularly because of this.

'American Psycho' directed by Mary Harron in 2000 hit the cinemas with a bang. It was one of the most known thrillers going, and the reason for this is because of the following:  nudity, strong violence and language used. We can clearly see that this film would be something to remember because a lot of disturbing scenes are used. The actor who plays the part of the 'American Psycho' is someone who you wouldn't believe, based on first impression, to be that type of character and Mary Harron has very cleverly added this in to portray a sense of unknowing and tension as well as to scare the audience.A lot of special affects are used which help convey the idea that something is real, e.g the injuries. Without seeing the images of what the outcome of one of the killers attacks are, it leaves more to the imagination, which on a lot of occasions is something very well kept in films by using more to the imagination, but showing the exact movement of what could happen and what does happen in the attacks really effects the audience and makes them nervous and allows it to play on their mind more which is very typical to a thriller film.

Ultimately it is clear that without the use of technology as it's advanced and improved over the years, and the use of nudity, special effects and violence, it would make the films less realistic and believable.As films have adapted throughout time in the sense of technology, it shows that they are getting better and better, becoming the most spoken about things because the technology used enables the films to be at its best. In the 1960's films wouldn't contain half the things that are openly displayed in thrillers of now a days and it shows how thrillers have evolved over time into something more frightening and realistic. If we look at a film made 50 years ago, the effects used do not seem real and are actually seen as amusing by some people, however the special effects used in later films such as 'The Conjuring' which came out 2013, people see it as a lot more realistic and believable. Therefore in this essay I have shown that there has been a distinct change between how films once were, and how they are now.