Conventions of a Thriller

After looking at the 3 films to research thrillers I have discovered that there is several main conventions used to define a film in the 'Thriller' genre:

• There is usually a murder, kidnap or something similar to that. This keeps the viewing wanting to find out how the murder happened or why someone was kidnapped ect. This is one of the main themes of 'Hostage' is a family kidnapping.

• A narative which points the viewer into a different direction to that the story is going. Also it includes clues which keep the audience questioning what they are being shown and to try and let them work out what the end result of the story will be.

• Events happening to ordinary people which may help audiences relate to the situation such as Lucky Number Slevin, which shows 'Slevin' being blackmailed to perform killings for something he has not done. However the story brings up surprises later on which is in classic thriller style.
  

However the real challenge of a title sequence is to get a viewer immersed into the film as quickly as possible, especially thrillers which leave viewers asking questions from the word go. Researching the thrillers I have will help transfer ideas from them to put into the production I am making.

As there is many sub-genres of Thrillers, not all thrillers have the exact same conventions, however thrillers can be easily identifiable whether it is an action thriller or a psycological thriller as both perform the same take of keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat.