The History of the Thriller Genre

The History of the Thriller Genre

Thriller is a genre which is used in literature, film and television to create suspense, excitement and tension. These main elements of the genre mean that they are likely to stimulate the audience and their moods. All thriller titles aim to create a tense atmosphere, filled with suspense, where the viewers are anxious and expectant of what is to come. The thriller genre relentlessly peruses a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and to keeps the audience cliff-hanging on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. Tension usually increases when the main character is placed in a threatening situation, a mystery or a trap that they are unknowingly involved in from which escape seems impossible. 

The thriller genre first came about through literature, for example the ancient epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer's Odyssey. Both these poems use similar narrative techniques as modern day thrillers do. "Homer's Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as an early prototype of the thriller." Even the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood (1697) is an early example of a psycho-stalker thriller, the story of a wolf following a little girl through the woods. Novels such as Bram Stocker’s "Dracula" (1897) and Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein" (1818) include mythical creatures like those shown in modern thriller films, like: vampires, monsters, bats and wolves. 


One of the earliest known thriller films was the German film ‘M’. It was directed by Fritz Lang in 1931; where Peter Lorre played a child killer which was based on real serial killer known as the ‘Vampire of Dusseldorf’. However the auteur Alfred Hitchcock is considered to be the ‘master of the thriller genre’ by the way he creates films which represent reality, making the audience relate to the film and therefore become more terrified. Alfred Hitchcock helped to promote the thriller genre when making his first film; it was an early silent film called "The Lodger" based on the "Jack the Ripper" murders. It had major influence in the UK as the nation was introduced to a new type of film; Hitchcock's influence was from expressionist techniques that he had discovered in Germany.

In the 1940's Hitchcock continued to perfect his recognizable brand of suspense-thriller, directing "Foreign Correspondent" (1940) and the haunting, Oscar winning, "Rebecca" (1940). However, in the 1950's, Hitchcock added Technicolor to his thrillers, which led to the classic thriller title "Strangers on a Train" in which two passengers engaged in a battle of wits and exchanged murders with one another. 

Until today the thriller genre tried to follow examples from the past, it has since expanded and split off into many sub-genres. Some are influenced by current affairs like the assassination of President Kennedy, which brought a sudden popularity to political and paranoid thrillers, such as "The Ghost".
In recent years, thrillers have been slightly influenced by the horror genre; they have more gore/sadistic violence, brutality, terror, and body counts. Recent thrillers which took this route include films like Saw. There is also the spy/espionage thriller. These films show the espionage activities of government agents and their risk of being discovered by their enemies. From the Nazi espionage thrillers, which were made in the 1940's, to the James Bond films, from the 1960's, and to the high-tech blockbusters of today, the spy film has always been popular with audiences worldwide. 

Psychological thrillers have also become a hybrid and a distinguishing characteristic of these types of films is a marked emphasis on the mental states of its characters: their perceptions and thoughts. The main characters no longer rely on physical strength to overcome their enemies (like in other thriller sub-genres) but with mental resources. This includes things like mind games and the disruption of ones mental state. A very popular example of a modern psychological thriller is the "Black Swan". The thriller genre also includes, Sci-Fi thrillers (Minority Report), Historical thrillers (Charlotte Gray), Religious thrillers (The Da Vinci Code), Romantic thrillers (Casablanca), Crime thrillers (Silence of the Lambs), Supernatural thrillers (The Shining), Legal thrillers (The Pelican Brief), Erotic thrillers (Basic instinct) and Comedy thrillers (Mr & Mrs Smith).