History of the Thriller genre

The thriller genre is one of suspense and excitement. Tension is built by delaying what the audience sees to be inevitable but is built through situations which are seen to be inescapable. Thriller films are usually hybridised with sub genres such as action thrillers or sci-fi thrillers. For example ours will be a psychiatric thriller.

1920's-30's
In this era producers used to constantly regurgitate common ideas at the time with the instalment of long running franchises with each film ending with a cliffhanger that sees the hero in great danger. The 30s was the age of witty gentlemen detectives who constantly used one liners rather than violence to get out of a tough situation. Sir Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" was seen as setting up the template for exotic action action-adventure thrillers. The film was filled with chase sequences and a constant exchange of innuendos between Robert Donat and his leading lady.

1940's
In this period the genre toughened up with a flourish of urban crime in which there were fedora, trench coat wearing figures stroll through the cities late at night in order to solve mysteries. The plots were dense and the mood was hard bitten which went perfectly with the weary post war period. George Cukor brought in a psychological thriller in 1944 called "Gaslight". It was about a husband who plotted to make his own wife go mentally insane in the hope that he would gain her financial inheritance.

1950's - 60's
Alfred Hitchcock made a dramatic change to the thriller genre but bringing in the use of colour so that they were no longer black and white. Glamour was also added to his famous thrillers with the introduction of  'icey blondes' in the casting of his leading ladies. The first of these was "Strangers on a Train" in 1951. Constant repetition in thriller films in this period lay down the basic building blocks for creating a thriller film. "Peeping Tom" was a 1960's psychological thriller which featured a serial killer cameraman - the film was seen as controversial and received and extremely harsh reception.

1970's
This period brought in a increase of violence and horror to the thriller genre. There was almost an overlap between the horror and thriller genre with films such as "Wake in Fright" and Hitchcock's "Frenzy" which received an R rating for its vicious and explicit strangulation scene.

1990's
Thrillers began to have recurring elements of obsession and trapped protagonists who struggle to escape the clutches of a villain. Then the detectives who chased down a serial killer seemed to be the next trend for thriller genre. "The Silence of the Lambs" is a famous example of a thriller film in which a cannibalistic psychiatrist engages in conflict with an FBI agent whilst she hunts down a transgender serial killer.