Suspense is crucial to keep the viewer "on-edge", and the idea is to convey the plot with a sense of tension and anxiety, and constantly implies an impending doom. Ari Hiltunen said that "Aristotle's concept of fear can best be understood by the word of suspense. The audience are aware of threatening danger and would like to warn the character but of course cannot do so."
Common themes of thrillers differ depending on their sub-genre:
- Crime thrillers mainly involve ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge and kidnappings, and they often touch on topics of terrorism and political conspiracies, often being realistic in their style
- Mystery thrillers include investigations and the whodunit technique
- Psychological thrillers use the elements of mind games, stalking, confinement/death traps, horror-of-personality and obsession to leave the audience uneasy
- In paranoid thrillers, fringe theories (a viewpoint held by a small group of supporters), false accusations and the feeling of paranoia are common, and leave the audience uneasy like psychological thrillers
- Spy thrillers, like the James Bond series, involve threats to the entire country/world, spies, espionage, conspiracies, assassins and electronic surveillance to excite the audience and fits with the theme of desire for justice.
Thrillers often take place in ordinary suburbs and cities, although they can also take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, the high seas, abandoned buildings or fields of farmland.
In terms of editing, thrillers often include:
- Low key lighting
- Quick jump cuts and cross cutting
- Shadows
- Tense/atmospheric music
- Changes in angles of shots
- Diegetic sounds to emphasise silence e.g. breathing
- Black/white shots
- Montages of shots
- The protagonist(s) at the mercy of the antagonist
- A colour palette, usually blue and grey with a contrast colour
James Patterson sums up what a thriller should do, in my opinion, perfectly in his introduction to "Thriller", 2006:
"...Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre's most enduring characteristics. But what gives the variety of thrillers a common ground is the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all designed to generate that all-important thrill. By definition, if a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing it's job."
