Horrors Vs Thrillers - What's the difference ?

As part of my research of the 'Thriller' genre I decided to make a habit of watching Thrillers to understand the conventions better. A film I was really interested in watching was 'The Shining' as I found its opening very interesting and it left me wondering what the film was about.

Before I watched the film I decided to find out what the narrative of the movie actually was, then I read that the film is not actually a Thriller but a Horror.


The Shining is a Psychological-Horror

This made me interested in what the difference between a Thriller and a Horror actually was, so I decided to blog about the similarities and differences I found.

How they scare the audience 

Horrors: In order for the audience to be satisfied with a Horror, a various amount of blood must be shed through a variety of creative techniques to shock and frighten the audience. The main aim of a Horror is too scare the audience as much as possible, as that is the very reason the audience are watching the film, to be scared. Sometimes the genre gets slandered for this fact as critics feel that some Horror movies don't take time to build characters and story lines and instead just rush into killing off characters in the most horrific way possible.

Thrillers: On the other hand Thrillers are most likely to be less violent overall, they scare the audience in a more subtle but effective way. Thrillers movies don't have to incorporate as much death in their films and the way characters die don't have to be as horrific, whereas most times this is demanded from Horrors. In a way Thrillers have to build characters as the audience is most likely looking for a well developed storyline.
                                                                                                   Someone being pushed down the stairs and dying as a result is a acceptable way to kill a character in a Thriller, but a much more violent technique would be expected of a Horror.

The Supernatural 

Horrors: Horror films have a history of using the supernatural to scare the audience, ghosts, demons, killer bunnies, zombies and anything that can stir up fear in the viewer are deemed appropriate in Horrors.

(the clip is an example of the supernatural being used to frighten the audience in a thriller (the shining)

Thrillers: Unless the film is branded a 'supernatural-thriller', it is not common to find the supernatural used to scare the audience in thriller films. Instead they tend to deal with real life situations and scenarios such as, plane crashes, stalkers, or hostages.

It is important to note that a Horror film can be much like a Thriller film and vice versa. Some horrors can have very developed story lines like most Thrillers do. For example The Shining is psychological-horror about a man who moves into a hotel with his family in order to focus on a writing project he is outgoing. He starts to become frustrated about his unsuccessful writing project and having violent outbursts. Eventually he becomes possessed by a spiritual force in the hotel that he was forewarned about before he moved in. What makes this movie a Horror is the incorporation of supernatural beings and the violent killings in the film.

My overall summary of the difference between thrillers and horrors is that in a Thriller the main aim is too stir up tension and suspense whereas is in a horror it too frighten the audience and elicit fear and disgust (though killing.)

However many films can cross both genres.

RESEARCH: Intertextuality

In media, intertextuality is when certain media products influence other media products. Intertextuality is when films or even TV programmes use the same ideas and perhaps camera shots to remind the audience of a certain moment or make them feel a certain way.

 

An extremely popular one that is used in many films is the woman that is in the shower and she gets attacked whilst in the shower. This idea originnaly came from the Alfred Hitchcock film; Pyscho. This idea was then borrowed by numerous films and has become an iconic scene in many horror and thriller films. A film that used this idea of the woman in the shower was 'Fatal Attraction'.  

 

 The image on the left was taken from the movie Pyscho which was the original movie that came up with this idea. The image on the right shows the exact same scene in Fatal Attraction. Both women are put against white tiles which contrasts massively with the fact that there is red blood in the scene.

 

These two images are also from both these films. Again, the bottom one is the original and we came see that the the top image is extremely similar to the bottom one. Which means the idea was again borrowed when they decided to use a close up of the woman's feet.

 

 

Again these two images are incredibly similar. This is because they has 'borrowed' this idea from Pyscho and have tried to make it their own in a certain way. By seeing this scene, we will be reminded of Pyscho and we will know that something bad is happening. It will cause the audience to feel the same way over a nd over again, evern though they know what is going to happen. The shot types are also used to make this even more effective.

 

Prelim Shot By Shot Analysis:

Our group decided to base our prelim on a girl that is surprised when she finds someone waiting for her in a dark room. The intention was to make the audience feel maybe eerie about what was going on and what was going to happen next. We used various shots like extreme close ups and long shots to make the audience feel certain ways not only towards the main character; Giselle, but also towards Hermenia's character. Me being the person who was filming, I tried to use as many shots from the storyboard as I could.

 

When it came to editing, we all done it together and we all gave input to the way we wanted to edit it. We used Final Cut Pro to edit our film and we also used Soundtrack to search for the music we wanted on our video. When we were using Final Cut Pro it was quite easy as we had previously used it for other projects, however, Soundtrack was abit harder as we didn't use very much of it on our previous work.

 

We tried to follow our storyboard but we found that when we were actually shooting the video, some shots looked better in different ways, so we occasionaly changed it but still tried to follow the shot types as much as we could. Also, we found that when we started filming in the dark room, it was too dark and it would not come up on camera, so we had to get a light to help us make it look better on camera. It was quite hard to manage both the camera and the lighting on my own so when I would be filimg Hermeniam Giselle would hold the light and when I would film Giselle, Hermenia would help me.

 

Once again we worked well as a team and I was extremely happy with our end result. I think we used diverse camera shots which made our prelim interesting and not boring to watch.

Planning Initial Ideas 1

As soon as we were given the task my group and I produced may creative ideas about what our film opening my be like.

The first thing we did when asked to think of opening ideas was think about thrillers we had watched before and enjoyed, we used these thrillers as sources of inspiration to help us produce an idea for our final film opening.


I personally enjoyed watching the thriller 'Orphan'. Orphan is about a couple with two kids living in the US who decide to adopt a child from an orphanage. All is well until the oldest child realises that there is something very different and weird about the orphan they have chosen to adopt. In denial the couple dismiss the idea that there is something different about the child and choose to love her as their own. In time the mother realises that many unfortunate events have taken place since the orphan moved into the family home.




Eventually it is revealed that the 'orphan' is really a grown woman trapped in a child's body due to a growth disorder. Her image makes it impossible for her to receive love from a man her age so she attempts to seduce the husbands of the couples that adopt her.

We all realised that were attracted to the sub-genre Psychological-thriller, as we liked the idea of a character having a deadly hidden personality.

We decided that our thriller opening would most likely be one that hinted the genre was Psychological-thriller and we also discussed what type of film opening would be most suitable.

Shot by Shot Prelim Analysis

The narrative of our video was a teenage girl being shocked by an unexpected person waiting for her in a dark room. We used a variety of shots to effectively capture the narrative, such as long shots, close up, extreme close ups and mid shots. After we has captured the narrative and taken appropriate shots to affectively tell the story we edited the clips we has and transformed it into a film opening by adding opening titles.

A difficulty we faced when filming was getting the correct lighting, as the room we were filming in was very small and dark with no windows, when the light switch was turned on in the room it was to bright and took away the tension we wanted in opening and mystery we wanted to create in the character. So we had to add a dedo light which is a portable light source, like a torch or lamp but designed for filming. We shone the dedo light on dimmest setting possible, enough to see the characters facial expression but not take loose the feeling of fear we were trying to build.

I enjoyed the process of making this opening title sequence and thought it was very good practice for when my group and I make our real film opening.

RESEARCH: Structure of film openings

There are 4 basic structures of thriller film openings. These very important structures will allow the audience to get a perception of what the film may be about. Within a short amount of time these thriller openings will be very identifiable to the audience.

Titles over a blank screen - Black Swan

The first thing that we seen on screen is the production company, followed by the distribution company.

The title sequence begins with a black screen, words with white plain font fade in.

Music played on the violins then starts, music can associate what the film is going to be about.

 We then see the title, with bigger writing but in the same font and white.

The music then is established by the scene, we see that it is a ballet. The mise-en-scene is dark and fast pace as the actress is in the middle of a performance.

 However, we do not see any more credits come up on screen. This is possibly because the main actress is very well known over the world - Natalie Portman, therefore the audience is more than likely to recognise her.

The plain font and black background connotes mystery. This is a psychological thriller, therefore the audience may be able to pick up from this just by analysing the way the mise-en-scene and black background play an important part.

A narrative opening- The Shining
A narrative opening usually has the titles coming up over the footage, usually the footage taken while they come up leads into the film itself. This is the most common used structure of opening, used in a range of different genres.

The titles are put in places that would not disrupt the viewer from seeing the main action, but they are big enough to let the audience see who are the actors, directors, etc. The title colours are also green, which stands out, and use very simple font.

Discrete Title Sequence- Arlington Road
Discrete sequences show some footage, usually the footage may be blurry or uneasy on the eyes, as to confuse the audience of what may be happening, the audience then judges what type of movie it could be by possibly listening to the music that comes with the scenes. Sometimes discrete title sequences will show objects or places that may not be relevant to what happens next.
They also don't have a lot of titles.

Stylized- Taking of Pelham 123

Stylized editing is used to create a certain effect, for example, in this clip we see that the titles come and go with the effect of a black rectangle that functions like a train, the font is bold and quite big on screen, this can also connote masculinity, leading to think that it is an action thriller.

Prelim shot by shot