Different Types of Thrillers

Different Types of Thrillers

             There are many different sub-genres of thrillers, more than most people are aware of. 

These could be: 

• Suspense Thrillers
• Conspiracy Thrillers
• Political Thrillers
• Religious Thrillers
• Spy Thrillers
• Psychological Thrillers
• Techno- Thrillers
• Supernatural Thrillers

Definition of a Thriller: A suspenseful, fast-paced story or film, depicting crime, mystery or espionage, often with surprises and plot twists. 

Key Themes of a Thriller: 

• Terrorism
• Kidnapping/ Ransoms
• Conspiracies
• Surveillance
• Car Chases
• Paranoia
• And more...

Suspense Thrillers: In suspense thrillers the audience often know when something negative will happen before it happens, and have what they believe to be a superior amount of knowledge on the plot of the movie, yet cannot stop the inevitable event from unfolding.
There are multiple different types of Suspense Thriller, this includes:

• Action/Adventure Thrillers
• Sci-Fi Thrillers
• Crime-Caper Thrillers
• Western Thrillers
• Film-Noir Thrillers
• Romantic-Comedy Thrillers

Movies that fit into this genre are movies like 'Stolen', 'Lawless' or 'Ticket Out'. 

The 'Stolen' Trailer fits into the suspense category as there is an abduction, there is a bank robbery, there is fighting and guns, betrayal and many other factors that make it a Suspense Thriller. 

Conspiracy Thrillers: A conspiracy thriller often involves a nobody (often the heroine or hero of the story) who finds something that then leads them into a spiral of events unfolding that they did not anticipate and they find that the entire thing is a lot more secret and important then first thought and will most likely link into the government in some way. There is often a character previously thought to be good, turning bad. There is often deception and lies and rumours, creating a conspiracy. A conspiracy thriller movie would be 'Red Eye' or 'Salt'. Red eye is about an innocent hotel manager is trapped aboard an airplane with a terrorist who threatens to kill her and her father unless she helps with a planned assassination of a politician in her hotel. Salt is about a CIA agent is accused of being a mole by a Russian defector, and goes on the run to prove her innocence.

Red Eye fits into this sub-genre as there is terrorism and a conspiracy, there is threat on her life. Her encounter with the man is originally just seen as coincidence but it is revealed that it is not coincidence at all and is planned.

Salt fits into this sub-genre as there is deception and government secrets and we know that people are lying about their identities.

Political Thrillers: A political thriller (as the name suggests) often involves a political scandal, maybe a power struggle. This again may involve government secrets and deception. It may be about covering secrets or fighting for power, maybe with police corruption or terrorism. It is normally discovered that the party in power has a secret and is not as good as everyone thinks. Again like the conspiracy thriller, it would probably start with an innocent character uncovering something they shouldn't have and this leads to a massive scandal of lies. Movies like this include 'The Lives of Others'. This is set in East Germany, five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the secret police was in full-force. The story is centered round a plawright and his actress wife who are suspected of being disloyal to their government.

Spy Thriller: Normally involves a hero/heroine who is undercover on a mission to reveal the bad guys. Involves lots of action and stereotypical posh cars and gun fights. Is normally set in exotic locations. Films like this include the James Bond series, based around Mr Bond, an agent who seeks out terrorists and villains.

We see gun fights, travelling to exotic countries, interrogations and everthing that is involved in spy films.

Psychological Thriller: A psychological thriller often involves the unravelling of a characters mind and emotional unstability. These movies also incorporate movies and are sometimes quite difficult to understand due to the point of view from the unstable person. We may see clips from the future and past mixed in as flashbacks telling us the story. There is often a big secret, linking with the rest of the movie that ties it all together. This can often overlap with the horror genre quite easily. Movies like this are 'Number 23' and 'Triangle'.

Number 23 is about an obsession with the 23 enigma, an esoteric belief that all incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some permutation of the number 23, or a number related to 23.

The story revolves around the passengers of a yachting trip in the Atlantic Ocean who, when struck by mysterious weather conditions, jump to another ship only to experience greater havoc on the open seas.

Techno-Thrillers: Includes science-fiction elements and maybe military involvement. Should be a thriller because of some form of technology that has caused the situation. An example of this is Die Hard 4.0 as the terrorist situation is due to the hacker being fired from the government system because he found how vulnerable the security of the country was. He was able to hack onto the governement secrets system on his laptop so they fired him, tarnishing his reputation.

Supernatural Thrillers: A supernatural thriller always involves some kind of supernatural element, mixed with suspense and a changing plot line. This film sub-genre is less affixiated with action and adventure, however uses the thrilling part more. May focus on ghosts or aliens or anything supernatural. Movies like this incude 'Legion' or 'The Unborn'. Legion is about God deciding to give up on the world so he sends his finest angel down to the world to destroy it, however the angel decides that he cannot and protects the only innocent thing left on the earth, a newborn baby.

The Unborn is about a young woman who is tormented by a ghost and seeks help from a rabbi. The ghost seeks to use her death as a gateway to physical existence

Religious Thrillers: A thriller in which the main theme is religion. This could be a religious opposition, terrorism or religious power fights. A movie with this is 'Red State'. Red state is about a group of teenagers who get caught up in extreme religion who do not agree with their partying and lifestyles, led by the twisted preacher Abin Cooper , hold them captive in a compound known as the Five Points Church. As the Pastor and his congregation embark on a reign of terror forcing the boys to witness executions before being prepared for their own death, they have to contend with the arrival of Federal Agent Joseph Keenan and his team who are armed, dangerous and ready to bring them all down.

By Alice Gamble.