Thriller is a genre of literature, film, video gaming and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenre is psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods such as; a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, suspense, excitement, tension, terror. Literary devices such as red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively. The cover-up of important information from the viewer and fright/chase sense are common methods in all of the thriller subgenres, although each subgenre ahs its own characteristics and methods.
Common methods in crime thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. More common in mystery thrillers are investigations and the whodunit technique. Common elements in psychological thrillers are mind games, psychological themes, stalking, confinement/deathtraps, horror-of-personality, and obsession. Elements such as fringe theories, false accusations, paranoia and sometimes action are common in paranoid thrillers.
Why does silence of the lambs belong in the thriller category?
The plot:
Clarise Starling (student in training to be a detective) gets her first real "case" in interviewing Dr. Hanibal Lector (previous psychiatrist, murdered people by eating them), the aim of this was to get him to help with a serial killer to whom is known as "Buffalo Bill" and is known for skinning larger women, little did they know it was for a skin suit due to his wish to be a woman after denial's from surgery.
This is very different to other thrillers such as Seven, this is because it focuses on a psychological problem with the main character as opposed to whom they "searching for".
Buffalo Bill ^
Characters:
Clarise Starling:
A student in training to become a detective within the FBI, and is chosen to help solve a serious murder case due to being top of her class. In order to do this she must visit a previous murderer to whom is held in a high security prison but is very clever, enough so that he becomes a vital part in solving the case. she has a background of becoming an orphan at the age of 10 after her father was killed, but then she must move to live with cousins on a ranch (sheep and horses) however she runs away due to hearing lambs being slaughtered - "screaming of the lambs" Hanibal Lector:
After being held in a high security prison from murdering many people by eating them, and previously being a "top psychiatrist" making him a very smart man. From this the FBI decide to use him to help solve a crime of a serial killer, he can look at the case and the clues and figure out where, when and how.
Buffalo Bill:
A blonde haired, blue eyed man with psychological problem having the "need" to be a woman but is refused repeatedly of having a sex change resorts to killing size 14 women for their skin in order for him to make a suit of skin.. changing him into a woman.
The thriller genre includes various conventions of which are used generally in it's films, some of which include;
- 1 main protagonist character
- Bad background (childhood)
- a crime at the core part of the story
- complex & confusing
And more!
Silence of the lambs could be classed as a thriller movie due to it's use of these conventions. Firstly with Clarise Starling a student wanting to become a detective is shown as the protagonist character as she invesigates the "Buffalo Bill" case, however as she looks into the case she must use the help of a previous murderer who gets to know her background of being an orphan and her personal story of the " Screaming lambs". Over the course of the film it unravels as the audience begin to understand the plot, this is particular clever when the viewers do not really see "Buffalo Bill" until nearing the end of the film when the story begins to unravel and make sense.
Although silence of the lambs may be seen as a Hybrid genre, meaning that it fits into more than one genre, and in my personal opinion i feel that it can apply to:
- Thriller
- Horror
- Crime
however it is prodominantly thriller meaning that it can be classified into the thriller genre.
Silence of the lambs may differ to other films within the thriller genre due some of the conventions being broken, particuarly as it uses a bad guy as an assistant to the good guys, for example; Hanibal Lector (murderer to whom eats people, been in a hugh security prison for 8years) is used to help figure out the "Buffalo Bill" case in terms of where the murderer is, what he's done/doing and how to get him. By using him as an assistant it breaks the conventions due to the way it generally includes a wife/bestfriend/partner/family member/etc that can help, but instead the characters must meet, understand one another & then proceed on to solving the case.
In my opinion I feel that silence of the lambs looks into the background of each of it's characters well particuarly Clarise as a convention of Thriller is specifically a bad background to the main character whether it's abuse or loss of a partner, as Hanibal questions Clarise to learn about her past it unravels to why she is there today.
The Trailor:
the trailor above, shows key elements of the movie in order to attract a wide viewing audience, however i feel that it emphasised a more "horror" genre as opposed to thriller, due to the way it shows flashes of images of the main characters, introducing each of them and their roles within the film. On the other hand this may be done because the film is part of a triology and is the second film of this therefore their main target audience already have a knowledge of the character Hanibal.... BUT that doesn't mean they know about other characters which means they have used further clips of these to introduce.
