Research into the history of a Thriller Miss Georgiou

Research into a thriller

A thriller is a genre that is able to create tension, shock, suspense and surprise. It most commonly involves a victim and a villain which then drags into death and most likely murders. All of the emotions behind a thriller and the characters create a opportunity to the audience to get attached to the characters, in order for the film to be more exciting and emotional. Over the years films have changed dramatically from simple acting to dramatic scenes used with technology and special effects.

Insert picture of jack the ripped 1959

 The black and white film included actors such as Lee Patterson and Betty McDowell. Both these actors have starred in many other films after Jack the Ripper, and based their accomplishments of their roles on this film. 

Jack the Ripper is a film based on a mad avenging doctor. The plot of this film is that the serial killer goes around murdering the innocent or the troubled with his initial slitting of the throat. His identity is hidden and we do not see his identity revealed until the end. As he used knifes to slit people's throat and murder them he was slowly creeped upon by the police. 

In the 1950's Jack the Ripper, we do not see the cutting of the throats, we only see the shadows as blood and gruesome detail to murder was prohibited as it could cause upset and disturbance to the audience watching. Special effects were not around in the decade so all murders had to be seen with imagination as you could never fully see anything happen. This would add to the suspense of the film as you would want to see the brutality of the murder, and who did it. A convention of a thriller is used in this film as the identity of the murderer is hidden until the end of the film. This is so we can start to think about the consequences and the suspects, which makes the film much more intensifying and suspense building. Even in the 50's the identity of the killer is hidden. The iconography is conventional to a thriller as we usually expect to see the typical use of knifes, guns, blood, ropes etc. this is used in this film to make the murders more relatable and that makes the audience worried for the murders to come. 

Although this film uses the typical conventions of a thriller, the murders are very simple, in which you cannot see very much happening due to the era it was made and the audience being more sensitive towards the subject of the film. The special effects were not used as they were not invented, so the film had to be more simple and obvious which wouldn't of made the film as frightening as the films could be now.

1960 Physco picture

Psycho is a 1960 American thriller film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh. The film centers on the encounter between a secretary, who ends up at a secluded motel after embezzling money from her employer, and the motel's disturbed owner-manager,and its aftermath. 

The most famous scene of the film is the 'Shower Scene' where she is stabbed several times and falls into the bath tub with blood draining into the plug hole. Here we do not see the identity of the killer as they are hidden by the shower cover and then the camera angle focuses on her being stabbed. In the 60's you were not allowed to show nudity on screen and harsh intimidating violence which is why you can only she shoulders and above or knees and below. By showing nudity it was astonishing and was not accepted in the 1960's. This breaks the 180 rule as The shower scene was the only scene that showed violence and a little bit of nudity, this caused the audience to jump and scream as they saw this figure creeping up behind her in the shower and the way she was killed as you see the blood flowing down the drain. This breaks the 180 rule as you see behind the victim and in front of  her, so you see the whole area she is in.This creates imagination of what is happening to the victim so even though you don't see the knife going through her flesh and how the blood drips from her body creating a ghastly scene. 

This is conventional to a thriller as again the identity of the murderer is hidden and you do not find out until the very end. The strictness of nudity and violence is still there as you can't see any part of the woman's body apart from the head, shoulders, feet and legs, as it was considered rude and shameful for any part of the private body to be shown on screen. The iconography again is knifes which is what you'd expect to be the murder weapon of a killer in a thriller film. The audience here would be shocked at the terror of the murder. Furthermore, the girl is defiantly conventional to a thriller film as it it's you typical young female waiting to be murdered. In a thriller you associate young blondes to be you typical victim as they are portrayed as quite dumb and mislead easily, so an easy target for a murderer. Due to the target audience being offended by nudity and scared by the thriller, only small bits were added and since 1959, only small nudity was added as this film was the first film to feature small parts of nudity so the thrillers had already developed over a small period of time.

Insert picture of the wicker man 1970

In the 70s another thriller film was 'The Wicker man' directed by Robin Hardy which is about a police sergeant is sent to a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl whom the townsfolk claim never existed. The sergeant finds a village where they find a cult whom of which are sacrificing people and torturing them either to be eaten alive or to be burnt alive in a large wicker man. 

In this film we do not see much violence your imagination is key at this point as we see them go into the wicker man and then see it go into flames. The audience would have been scared at this point and this would have been a great scene which would of created suspense tension and a frightening atmosphere which is conventional to a thriller film as you'd expect there to be high amounts of suspense and tension.  The characters are in masks which is hiding their identity so the thrillers genre hasn't changed much over the years but the simplistic murders still happen due to the technology not being created yet. There's a lean way for the thrilling moments as now they are introducing torture and burning into the equation. This makes everything twice as more terrifying for the audience as they see pain and upset and tragedy all in one scene.

Insert picture of Dead Calm

An 80s thriller film is called 'Dead Calm' by Phillip Noyce, where a mass-murderer kidnaps and seduces a young woman after leaving her husband to die on the vessel, whose crew he's just slaughtered. This happens in the middle of an ocean where no one is around besides the three people. 

In this film they show scenes of lots of blood, dead people showing the gashes on their faces and the fatal attack on their body, also scenes of nudity is shown when Nicole Kidman is raped by this murderer Billy Zane. In this decade it shows a huge change in the thriller films, as now you are more open to frequent nudity and mild violence and blood on screen. The audience do not feel as offended and intimidated to see the upfront nudity and violence as the tolerance of scary things has increased therefore people do not get scared so quickly and easily, as the would of done two decades ago. In the film, the blood and fatal attacks are shown in full and they want the stronger audiences to feel as vulnerable as the victims. As the years increase the more tolerant people are with nudity and thrillers, here is one of the first films where iconography such as blood is used to make the scene more realistic, a few decades ago this wouldn't of been allowed and the audience would have been too frightened of the reality, than in the 70's blood and gore was more frequent so people tended to only be scared and not let it effect them too much. Blood and villains are conventional to thrillers as you expect gore and horror as it used to make the scene more dramatic and realistic, and a villain as this is what makes the film a thriller, without the villain there's no thriller. The villain is what makes the film more intense, as you want to find out who the villain is and whether or not they get their comeuppance. 

Picture 1998 Physco

This thriller is a remake of the original film of 'Physco' in 1960. You can tell the differences of the original to the remake drastically even at the beginning of the film. In the 1960's version, blood, nudity some of the typical things you'd believe to be in a thriller, were limited due to the sensitive audiences and the fact that people were offended by the onscreen nudity. Now, in the 1990's, special effects were created (1996) and everything scary was taken to a drastic new level. 

Blood, gore, murders, nudity and many other things were allowed to be shown on screen and you were able to see much more than you would unlike in the 60's. The plot of this film is still the same, the film was produced and directed by Gus Van Sant for Universal Pictures. Actors include Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche. The film was very successful and special effects were included which made the scene more dramatic and gruesome than before. The conventions of this film was the villain was masked and the identity was hidden and the typical young girl was brutally murdered by the villain. This all makes the audience feel the tension happening in the scene where the girl is murdered in the shower.

Insert picture of Saw 

A recent film is 'Saw' directed by James Wan. A great scene starts with a dead body lying between the two men, as they wake up in they find themselves in a bolted lair of a serial killer who's been nicknamed "Jigsaw". The men must follow various rules and objectives if they wish to survive and win the deadly game set for them. 

A lot of violence and blood is shown in this film to create shock and surprise in the audience. This film is different to the four films previously because they show less blood and gore, this film shows all the details of how they died and them getting tortured. This actually shows the weapon going through the victim which Is used through special effects which just shows how the thrillers have changed over the years. They have become more brutal and shockingly horrible as they really make the audience fear for their own lives. This is disturbing because it can make the audience jump and feel as though they are a part of the scene and that they are getting tortured as well. In the 20th century, they do not leave all the gory scenes to imagination, they actually show what happens scaring the audience and letting them dwell on the events afterwards letting the audience fearful of all the detail about the film.  As special effects is used in the film, it creates a large amount of dear within the film as they can see what is happening and they can see what could happen next what with the reality of the iconography and the scene itself. They make everything more dramatised and it's very much more complicated whilst in the other films everything is simplified due to the low budgets, the audience and the different technology. 

My research will help me with my planning as I can see the conventions to a thriller more clearly and what I must include to make my thriller more spine tingling and tense for the audience. It has shown me what  it to put in my thrillers from the earlier decades of film, and this will help me with my planning as I can try and relate back to the more frequent films to make my thriller for terrifying and conventional to a typical thriller film.