Thriller's watched in class

To grasp more interest and knowledge on Thriller films, we watched extracts from 5 different type thriller films. I took notes and here is what i picked out as research.

Psycho (1960)

• Black and White (one of the first famous thriller films)
• Seeing an image (shadow) through the shower curtain.
• Weather is dreary, this sets a creepy mood.
• Some scenes are slow paced, others are fast.
• Slow mysterious music before she enters the shower.
• Ironic that she is so happy to be in the shower she exaggerates her happy mood.
• The fast pacing music while she is being stabbed and the excessive number of times she is stabbed
• Close up of her hand sliding down the tiles as she dies.
• When the camera zooms on the plughole as we watch the water and her blood drain through it, then zooming into her eye and spiralling out
• Anonymous killer comes from nowhere we just see a black outline of the killer an his knife. (mystery)

Kill Bill (2003)

•   The opening scene with the hankechief wiping blood from her with 'Bill' written on it and the voice over, we never actually get to see bill so it is a mystery, also the main character keeps her name anonymous with bleeps over when she says her name.
• The cartoon japanese scene is very different and is also in some ways thrilling.
• The time it shows 4 years before and 13 hours later etc, keep us in the know of what is going on. 
• Waking up in a hospital close up of her face.
• Her narrative voice add's effect.
• In the final chapter it goes black and white in the building and then someone turns the lights off, it gives the effect of it getting darker and darker (in an evil way)
• When she walks in and see's everyone we get a pause and character update from the main character so we know who certain people are.
• The final fight between the bride and O-ren Ishi pacey music in the background.

Collateral (2004)

• Fast pace music and scene changes and action means it is extremely tension building.
• It is mainly set at night so you have to look deeper into the film. The night adds a lot of suspense
• The use of torches that focus on the action.
• Multiple gun shots, a pause then one more to finish that scene off.
• Close up on faces to show emotion.
• Busy street and traffic make it more manic.
• Stereotypical characters help you understand why certain things happen.

 Breif case scene, Gun action.

Perfume (2006)

• Typical main character (psychotic man) for a thriller.
• classic example of thriller is he victimizes females who are innocent and kills them.
• The camera sets focus on the action and not what is going on in the background.
• Dimmed lighting and a lot of redness in the film representing evil.
• Set in olden days where these occurances are not exactly expected or common.
• The strange ways in which he gets the perfume from the women's scent keeps the audience intregued and is also quite mysterious.
•  Classic beautiful red head with pale skin (using traditional old/english woman)

Here is a clip from the film.

The Dark Knight (2008)

• The overall character set out is enough to make a thriller film, the jokers face immediately brings out some evil along with batmans mask.
• The voice of the joker is quite mysterious.
• The main character (Batman) is a hero, typical kind of thriller storyline.
• Clown masks at the beginning are creepy and a lot of people have a fear of clowns so elements of fear are drawn into the film.
• Fast pace action and music.
• Night time scenes including a lot of action.