Thriller Write Up

Thriller Film Write Up

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - 1990
In the scene we watched, the main protagonist is a female training FBI agent who has been sent to interview a cannibal who is in prison. He is kept behind a glass wall which is the physical barrier separating the two, however, in the scene we learn that he gets into peoples head so doesn't need to be able to touch them. In this particular scene, for once, the antagonist has the upper hand which creates fear in the audience for the protagonist. During this scene, there is a lot of eye contacting made and held which makes the antagonist appear very intense and creepy, further helped by the fact he's standing up against the glass so he's standing as close to the women as he can, making him appear even more creepy. The camera shots use lots of shot reverse shots and match on action to make the scene flow easily but to also make it slightly disjointed which adds to the tension and pace of the scene.

BLACK SWAN - 2010
In this film, the protagonist is psychologically challenged which makes the audience intrigued as to what is going on inside her head. She's a women training to play the parts of the white swan and the black swan in a ballet. She becomes very confused and starts to take on a double personality. In the scenes we watched, there was a lot of duel rolling and mirroring/reflecting which supports the double personality idea. The mirrored or reflected women is ding echoed actions which further confuses both the protagonist and the audience. The use of the lighting adds shadows so the audience isn't 100% sure of whether they saw her or a women who looked like her. Also, the use of a hand held camera adds pace and creates tension to the scenes.

THE SHINING - 1980'S
In this film, the protagonist becomes the antagonist, which is very rare for thrillers so this adds confusion and intrigues the audience further. One scenes we watched was where the female character is very clearly victimised which creates a stereotype of the women being the weaker sex and the other scene we watched was where the little boy sees two twins and the scene switches from them being alive, to them being dead and bleeding everywhere. This is a clever camera skill as it confuses the audience as we don't know which is real. The close ups on Danny's face really show his emotions and because he's only a child, we feel extreme sympathy and fear for him.

FATAL ATTRACTION - 1987
In this film, a one night stand goes horribly wrong and the main protagonist ends up with a obsessive stalker. In the scene we watched, there is really intense eye contacting, almost as if they're testing each other, which puts the audience on the edge of their seats because we don't know who's going to break first. In another scene, the expression of an obsessive ex being called a 'Bunny Boiler' comes from this scene as the obsessive one night stand kills and boils the family bunny which is really disgusting so it makes the audience dislike the antagonist much more. This creates tension as in this scene the use of cross cutting creates the sense that something is waiting in the house, which is typical of thrillers.