Types of Thrillers

Thriller films have many types of spins on them mainly because they can cover such a wide range of different types of films. There are various different genres that quite often overlap, combining two types together. Thrillers are quite often categorized by frequent action and are usually seen as fast paced and usually have the best storylines to them, usually with the villians getting the punishment. Below are just a few types of thrillers;

• Action Thriller: Lots of violence, an obvious main character, can include large quantities of guns, explosions and quite often can involve large elaborate sets for the action to take place in. A good example of an Action Thriller would be the latest James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’ where there is again a lot of violence, James Bond acts as the man character and many elaborate sets were used like airports and hotel resorts.
• Conspiracy Thriller: This is where we see a particular rival faced with a large, powerful group of enemies in which the extent of their danger is only seen by the opponents themselves. JFK directed by Oliver Stone is a prime example of this type of thriller, it following a mixture of fact and speculation surrounding the death of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
• Drama Thriller: A Drama Thriller is essentially where a drama film and a thriller film meet. These are shown as reasonably slow paced films with little action and involve a lot of character development. An example of this would be the film Chinatown, a 1974 American neo-noir film, directed by Roman Polanski, where a private detective who seems to specialize in matrimonial cases. He is hired by Evelyn Mulwray when she suspects her husband Hollis, builder of the city's water supply system, of having an affair.
• Physiological Thriller: This is the thriller which features hardly any physical conflict between the characters, often broken near the end of the film, as the conflict is very often mental and emotional. Many examples can be given here, Fatal Attraction directed byAdrian Lyne in 1987 about a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end and who becomes obsessed with him. It stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer.