Historical Research of the product/genre

Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer’s moods giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror. Thriller films tend to be adrenaline rushing, gritty, rousing and fast paced. The aim for thrillers is to keep the audience alert and on the edge of their seats. Common subgenres are psychological thrillers, crime thrillers and mystery thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, the political thriller and the paranoid thriller genre became very popular. A rather more action-packed subgenre of thriller is the spy genre, which are espionage films that could be fact-based stories or fanciful-escapist films. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock. The horror and action genres often overlap with the thriller genre.

James Patterson (2006) says that ‘...Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. The intensity of emotions they create gives the variety of thrillers a common ground, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all designed to generate that all important thrill. If a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing its job’.  The earliest thrillers began in the 1920’s. Alfred Hitchcock began his career with his first silent film The Lodger (1926), a suspenseful Jack the Ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film. Thriller films developed into the 1960’s where Director Michael Powell's tense Peeping Tom, with Carl Boehm as a psychopathic cameraman – the film was released prior to Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). After Hitchcock's classic films of the 1950s, he produced the shocking and engrossing thriller Psycho (1960) about a loner mother-fixated motel owner and taxidermist. Thrillers are now becoming more popular and more advanced due to better equipment, and advanced effects allowing thrillers to attract the audience as much as possible. Thrillers have now developed sub-genres which may involve elements of other genres. Crime thrillers usually emphasise action over psychological aspects. Central topics of these films include serial killers/murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, heists and double crosses. Some examples of crime thrillers are No Country For Old Men, Seven and Silence of the Lambs.

                                                                                                                                       

Alfred Hitchcock focuses on Psychological thrillers in which the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, rather than physical. Characters, either by accident or their own curiousness, are dragged into a dangerous conflict that they are not prepared to resolve. For example, Alfred Hitchcock’s films Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt and Strangers on a Train.

Target Audience Research

The target audience for thriller films can vary due to the different sub genres that most thrillers nowadays have. Most thriller films are aimed at young male adults due to males being more attracted to violent, gory films. No country for Old Men and Silence of the lambs were both rated ‘R’ and particularly aimed at young male adults. However, there are also films that are considered to be borderline thrillers. These types of films such as the sixth sense and the village are close to horror films, because of this the demographic would be slightly different, and probably younger female based. Films that are aimed at younger audiences tend to have a simpler story line which enables them to understand the film. Also there are legal thrillers such as Fracture and crime thrillers such as Se7en that target a more mature audience and classic thrillers (any Alfred Hitchcock film) that are rated PG, but are intended for adults.