What makes a thriller thrilling?

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises:

 

There are many things that make a thriller thrilling. For instants the film ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Rises’ is an action/thriller. This means the film typically consists of the protagonists being faced with a lot more obstacles and active tasks than other subgenres of thrillers. What makes ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Rises’ a thriller is that it includes a race against time, a clear antagonist and a violent storyline. All of these components allow the audience to be on edge and therefore the film is thrilling. The trailer denotes many jump cuts and throughout the trailer diegetic sounds of people singing creates an eerie atmosphere and therefore creates suspense. At the end of the trailer non diegetic sounds are used as the credits are displayed, this also creates suspense and is typical for a thriller.

 

The Black Swan:

‘The Black Swan’ is a psychological thriller, this means that it typically focuses on a character that is not psychologically stable. In the trailer what made it clear that it’s a thriller is that it contains psychologically unstable main character. In the trailer the main character is portrayed to be having severe hallucinations and is potentially going mental. This is once again a component that makes it clear that it is a psychological thriller. Another thing that the trailer includes is non diegetic sound, this is used throughout as it contains a lot of classical music. This adds a sense of eeriness to the thriller and creates a tense atmosphere, making it thrilling. The use of eerie music, jump cuts and the unstable main character all make the thriller thrilling and clearly a psychological thriller.

 

Point Break (1991):

 ‘Point Break’ is a crime thriller, this means that it typically contains a large amount of violence and drugs. The trailer for ‘Point Break’ denotes a clear use of drugs and violence. At the beginning of the trailer cross cutting between a character from the film narrating and a scene in which there is a large amount of gun use. It is made clear throughout the trailer that this is a crime thriller as the use of guns, drugs, fighting and violence makes this clear. The trailer also contains a large amount of non-diegetic sounds such as gunshots and vehicles. When the credits are shown at the end non diegetic sounds are used and jump cuts are also. The jump cuts are quick and show many different thrilling and dangerous scenes from the film. This makes it clear that the film is thrilling as it connotes that it is action packed and contains things typical for a crime thriller. It also makes it clear that it is a crime thriller as other types of thrillers do not contain this amount of violence or gun use.