History of the Thriller Genre

This is a brief history of the thriller genre, I've selected three films from differing time periods that are evidently representational of the genre.

Beginning with Alfred Hitchcock's legendary 1960 film, Psycho.
In it's day, Psycho shocked viewers everywhere as it presented things which we hadn't seen in cinema ever before - The content was sinister, devastating twists in the plot and a killer soundtrack to raise the tension to a peak. Alfred Hitchcock was a pioneer of mind-bending filmmaking with other genre-defining titles such as Vertigo and The Birds, though Psycho is perhaps his killer-app.


Next up is Steven Spielberg's 1975 aquatic nightmare Jaws.
In this film, which (pardon the pun) bit hard right from the beginning which immediately catches the attention of the audience.
What followed was kill upon kill racking up whilst the townspeople panic. The killer (a shark) had hardly any camera time until the second half of the film, up to the climactic ending. The audience is kept in suspense throughout the film and the ending (cataclysmic as it is) relieves the tension built up from the start.


And finally we'll talk about a modern film - The 2011 remake of The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher. A film that starts out slow but gradually increases the tension and keeps the audience guessing at the conclusion to the plot. Various scenes in the film vastly change the pacing of the film such as a few rape scenes which are rather explicit - And critics were shocked by such parts. Tension continues to rise up until the end where Daniel Craig is held prisoner by the unearthed antagonist and events climax in a high-speed chase.