What is a Thriller?

What is a Thriller?

A thriller can be either a book or film but in both cases they are made to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. Thrillers are filled with suspense and breath taking action. Thriller is a very large genre, you can find many sub genres inside thriller, such as mysteries for example.


You can easily spot a thriller film by the many characteristics that it contains. These characteristics include certain types of camera angles and shots, typically a red herring of some sort, it often contains a fair bit of action but the main thing that defines a thriller is if it contains lots of suspense and creates a tense, eerie feel for the audience.

A lot of people will get Horror and Thriller mixed up but there is a difference between them.
Horror films take a very unsubtle approach to try and effect the audience emotionally using lots of blood and horrible creatures that do this, that and the other, where as Thrillers have a very subtle approach to it, leaving the audience guessing who? or what?

I much prefer watching thriller films as i like being able to try and work out what is happening instead of being slapped in the face by the directors ideas.