Audience Expectations of a Thriller

When people sit down to watch a thriller film everybody will  have their own expectations of what the film should consist of. However lots of these expectations will have similar aspects. Directors use camera angles , lighting, sound and mise-en-scene to deliver this.

There are certain things a thriller films needs to create the atmosphere. One of the most important things is the location or setting. many people overlook this but it is vital for the mood of the film as if it was set in a sunny village then the mood would be different to a dark, busy city. It is better of being an area with low key lighting and lots of potential hiding places.

 A thriller wants to create mystery but at the same time letting the audience know something that the characters do not can add lots of tension. This technique is associated with 'open thrillers' and is called dramatic irony. A murder weapon, another key part of thrillers, ties in with this as the police/detectives may not know who it belongs to but the audience will.A thriller will often involve a core of usual characters such as the Police officer or detective, victim(s), suspects, murder(s), protagonists, antagonists, terrorists, assassins, criminals and prison inmates. All these characters are empathetic or believable to make the film more realistic. However the main characters are personified at opposite ends of the spectrum, either being the villain or hero.

At the beginning of lots of films the audience are shown the victims in their every day lives, before the main incident or murder to make the audiences empathise and connect with the person or people so that they feel more strongly about what happens to the victim

Another type of thriller is the 'closed thriller' in which the audience don't know who the villain is and will keep them guessing till the end. This type of thriller consists of clever, intentional camera shots and lighting, never letting the audience to see the face of the murderer until the end.

Thriller films tend to consist of close and extreme close up shots to create intensity and terror. Also the murderer will be shot from underneath so it appears the audience are looking up up at them, giving them a sense of power. Alternatively the victim will be shot from higher up to give a sense of vulnerability.