History Of Thriller Films - Miss Georgiou

Why Do You Think The Thriller Genre Is Still Popular Today?

I believe that people like to be scared, so by watching them it gives them a slight thrill which makes it more exciting. Therefore, people become excited and watch more and more of these types of films. The more that watch it, the more that want to or are told about great films, so they end up watching it. In addition, being scared is one of the main reasons that people watch thrillers. They receive an adrenaline rush which makes them want to watch more. They end up being gripped to the television or cinema screen even though they can't bare to watch more. To this day, the thriller genre is one of the most popular, with a very large viewing audience. Thrillers can sometimes be based on real life events, which can cause more of the audience to relate or to understand what is happening.

1930's

The Man Who Knew Too Much

The man who knew too much is a 1934 British film directed by the one and only Alfred Hitchcock.

This film is based on a British couple (Jill and Bob Lawrence) who vacate in Switzerland with their daughter (Betty Lawrence). Jill goes to a shooting contest where she meets a foreign man named Louis Bernard. Later on,  Jill dances with Louis where she witnesses to his death. Before his death, he manages to let Bill and Jill know about some information that must immediately be given to the British consul. However, to make sure the Lawrence's keep quiet, assassins kidnap betty (their daughter). So, the Lawrence's return to England to receive help and find suspects in this mysterious kidnapping. Then eventually find out that the assassins are trying to kill the head of state of an unknown European country. They plan to do this during a musical concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Jill Lawrence makes it to the concert and prevents the assassin from making any dangerous moves by making a very loud scream. They are then tracked down at a sun worshiping cult. Bob enters the cult and is then held captive himself but manages to escape. A gunfight begins as the police surround the building. However, the assassins run low on ammunition and the majority do not escape death. Jill witnesses Betty and the last of the remaining assassins and uses her shooting skills to get Betty to escape from the villain who turns out to be Abbott, the man who beat Jill in the shooting contest. But rather than be caught Abbott commits suicide and Betty is safely returned to her parents. I believe this is a good use of a thriller because it allows the viewers to feel sorry and scary for the family. The amount of deaths create a scary scene for the film and also make the characters look heroic for the Lawrence’s and the police. The result of Louis' death has impacted the viewers because he was a good character. This however makes it a good thriller because the death could have been avoided but wasn't which makes it a mysterious killings people become suspicious and begin to make suspects. As it is mostly set in Switzerland as well as Britain. I think this is very interesting as they are in a foreign country, it is harder for them to get help. This is a sad scene in the film as we feel sorry for the family when their daughter goes missing because we don't know if they will ever see her again. This creates suspense which is the number one thing to have in a thriller.

Jill is portrayed as the smart, more or less confident woman. We know this because she enters a contest and does very well by getting second place. Also, i believe she has a strong willpower as well as a tough side to her. We know that the contest she entered was a pigeon shooting one. A woman using a gun is in my eyes considered very brave, especially when women didnt have much control during this time. The gun was probably one of the only things Jill was in control of. The fact that she is portrayed like this in the beginning shows us that something great will happen at the end because of her. Betty Lawrence plays the innocent victim. She is helpless and has nothing to do with the story. She is simply there as part of a revenge plot from the assassins. Abbott is the darkest character of the film. The colour of clothing he was wearing was black. Black is a colour of  the unknown, hidden or secretive. This is perfect for a thriller film because it creates mystery. Abbott is seen smoking cigarettes a few times, this could mean a few things psychologically. Some people smoke cigarettes to seem sophisticated, which could be the impression Abbott was letting off. It could also be to show that he is independent and can do what he wants. However, in old thrillers, we often see the 'baddie' smoking, Could it be that the characters and the audience just didn't see it coming?

In the clip above, the audience can see that a chair fight takes place. The use of the violence within this scene shows that there are some very evil characters within this scene. Therefore, when the violence takes place, the audience feel uneasy and scared for the good characters in this clip. Also, when watching the clip, i can hear music being played, however it is not sinister music but it is happy music being played over something else, this is called contrapuntal sound.  This makes the audience feel scared because they have two things to worry about. This makes the audience feel more than one emotion and the fact that there are different sounds playing with different images on the screen, the audience are left feeling overwhelmed because they have to concentrate on what is happening on the screen as well as what is being heard in the background.

1940's

Rebecca

Rebecca is another one of the many films produced by Alfred Hitchcock.

This romantic but thrilling film involves a young woman who gets married to a widowed man Max De Winter (Laurence Olivier). But she begins to live in the shadow of his ex-wife who mysteriously died a few years before. She must deal with her new husbands awful secret as well as face the housewife Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson) who will not accept that she is the new woman of the house. Max is the ex-husband of Rebecca. He is a very gothic man with very dark secrets, these match perfectly with his character being dark. We find out that he is the one that murdered Rebecca due to thinking she was carrying the child of another man. The problem we face is that we feel very sympathetic towards Maxim in most of the film, but we find out that he is the murderer which leaves us as viewers feeling confused and betrayed. Mrs Danvers is the head housekeeper at Manderly, and is by far one of the scariest people to share a scary, gothic mansion with. She is always dressed in deep black, which could mean that she is very mysterious and secretive, this describes Mrs Danvers perfectly.We never actually see Rebecca but we hear a lot about her. The first thing I’d like to add is that we never find out the name of the new wife. This is a huge clue because we know that she is jealous and upset that all anyone ever talks about is Rebecca. So, the fact that she has no name is huge because she has always felt unworthy compared to the other woman, so, she is unworthy of having a name.

In the clip above, the audience can see that there is a woman doing the narration at the beginning. This is a good thing to do for the viewers because they are then up to date with what has happened aswell as the images that are shown on the screen. Also the fact that it is in black and white can connote to the audience that there is some good and some bad happening within the scene in the background. I connote this because black means death aswell as evil and white means angelic and pure aswell as good. So, when they clash in the same images, i am led to believe that some characters in the scene have some good and some bad in them.

1950's

The Killer That Stalked New York

Sheila returns from her trip to Cuba smuggling in 50,000 dollars’ worth of diamonds. Noticing that she is being followed, she immediately sends the diamonds to her husband Matt. Sheila tries to escape the eyes of the secret agents but begins to feel sick and nearly faints in the street. A policeman takes her to the hospital, but on the way there she meets a  little girl who she infects. The doctor misdiagnoses her with having a cold so Sheila leaves and returns home. The girl is admitted to hospital only to find that she has small pox. While Sheila has been away, her husband, Matt is cheating on her with her sister, Francie. This is a thriller because a lot of tension and suspense is built up during the film. What makes this film so interesting is that it is semi documentary and a true story. This makes the audience feel as though they are part of it because it is indeed a real life situation.

In the clip above, the audience can see men looking at paperwork to see who could have stolen the diamonds. The fact that it is black and white can show the audience that everyone is equal within the scene and that no one is guilty in this part of the clip. The fact that the men are trying to figure out who stole the diamonds creates suspense as the viewers are waiting for them to understand.

1960's

Psycho

A young real estate agent (Marion) wants to get married to her boyfriend Alex. However, Alex is in a lot of debt and therefore cannot afford to get married. During work, Marion is given a huge amount of money from a customer who would like to buy one of the houses that she offers. Instead of giving the money straight to her boss, she keeps the money and sends it to Alex. Without letting anyone know, Marion takes a trip very far away so that no one will ever find her and the stolen money. As she is driving, she notices her boss who is quick to spot her and she becomes very frightened. She ends up spending the night in her car but is quickly awoken by a patrol officer. Unfortunately for Marion, she takes a wrong turn when trying to get to Alex. She ends up in a motel where she meets the proprietor, Norman Bates. He invites her to dinner and whilst waiting for him, Marion hears a heated argument between Norman and a woman who she thinks is his mother. Instead of going to Normans home, they go to eat in the motel parlour where Norman explains that his mother, Norma, is mentally ill. Marion goes to her room and showers unaware that Norman is looking through the peephole. As she is showing a female figure forms behind the curtain and appears, the figure then stabs Marion with a butcher knife. Norman runs through to see the dead corpse on the floor. He knows his mother is responsible for the death. He cleans everything up and puts all of Marion's possessions, including Marion, in her car and dumps it in a swamp which has everything sunk in.

A few days later, Marion's sister Lila demands to know where her sister is. A detective explains to Lila that Marion is wanted for taking $40,000 from her boss. After a lot of searching, he comes across the motel. When Norman is questioned, his behaviour makes the detective suspicious. After overhearing that Norman's mother had spoken with Marion, he decides that he wants to speak to her. However, Norman refuses to let him do so. He calls Lila to let her know what he has found and how he wants to speak to Norman's mother. The detective decides to head over to the Bate's house where he believes Norma is hiding. When he enters the home, a figure appears from upstairs and kills him. When Lila doesn't hear from the detective again, she goes to the local Sheriff who tells her that Norm bates had killed herself a decade ago following the death of her lover. Lila and her boyfriend Sam make their way to the motel. Norman demands that his mother stay hidden in the house until further notice. At the motel, Lila and Sam meet with Norman. Sam attempts to distract Norman so that Lila can enter the house. Realizing this, Norman punches Sam and runs to the house. Lila sees Norman heading over so she hides in the cellar. Whilst in the cellar, she sees the figure of a woman sitting on a chair. She becomes terrified when she discovers that the figure is the remains of Norma. Hearing Lila's screams, Norman rushes into the cellar dressed in his mother's wig and clothes. He tries to hurt Lila but is quickly stopped by Sam. Norman is now stuck in the persona of his mother forever. He has adopted her personality after killing her and her lover out of pure jealousy ten years ago. Feeling wrong for murdering Norma, he began to treat her as if she were still alive by unearthing his mother's corpse. Now, whenever he feels sexually attracted to a woman, Norman would mind control him and kill that woman. Norman has previously killed two girls aside from Marion and Arbogast. Whilst Norman sits in the room, the characters hear Norma's voice claiming the murders were completely her sons fault and adding that she 'wouldn't even harm a fly'. At the end of the film, we see Marion's car being taken out of the swamp.

The main character of this film, Norman, is portrayed as being a very over protective, jealous but caring son. He killed his mother due to her being with her lover a lot. He remains obsessed and we see that her soul is in his body. Although he tries to move on, his mother's soul inside of him remains sure that his new friends must die. From this, the audience can connote that his mother has placed a curse of him after she was killed.

In the clip above, the audience can witness a deranged man thinking that his dead mothers soul is inside of him, therefore making him kill all the women that he has ever been with. I believe that this scene creates a sense of suspense and tension for the audience because they then witness something that they weren't expecting at all. The use of the sinister music in the background allows the audience to build up the tension because of the music becoming louder as the evil presence is shown to the characters as well as the viewers. The use of the sinister music is conventional to the thriller genre as it makes the audience wait for what is to come within the next scenes, the sinister music is almost like a warning to them, so that they are prepared for what is going to happen next.

1970's

The French Connection

Two new york detectives, Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner (roy scheider) chase a french heroin smuggler who has a lot of money and connections. 

In this clip, the audience can see one character running from three other characters. The fact that they are running builds up suspense for the audience as they wait to see if the character that is being chased is caught or if he manages to run away. In the background, screaming and shouting can be heard, this builds up the level of excitement that the audience feel.

1980's

Blow Out

Jack is out at night recording sounds that he hears in order to complete an assignment that he has been asked to do. Nearby, a car has a blowout and falls into a river. He sees a dead man and manages to save a woman who is still alive. The only issue is that the dead man was the governor and presidential candidate. Sally, the woman Jack saved, is actually a call girl. Jack listens back to his recordings and hears a gunshot just before the blowout, which makes him realise that this wasn't an accident, it was a shooting. Jack goes on a journey to find out who killed the Governor and why.

1990's

Sin City

This film is based in a place named Basin City. It is about various characters and their very different lives. We learn about the lives of two hit men, the wife of a gangster, a boxer and two bandits. These stories are all joint together to create four tales about redemption and violence. The first part of the story is that an old police officer, Hartigan, tries to stop a child killer from raping his next victim, Nancy Callahan. The father of the killer, Senator Roark, has bribed the police to hide the crimes of his son. The police officers partner,  Bob, attempts to convince Hartigan to step away from the situation. Hartigam punches Bob and hits him badly enough that it leaves him unconscious. He then goes looking for Roark Jr. Hartigan goes to a warehouse where he finds Roark Junior and other men who are holding Nancy captive and Jr is preparing to rape her. Hartigan is shot in the shoulder by Junior who is attempting to flee. Quickly, Hartigan shoots Juniors ears off as well as other body parts. Bob who is now conscious is revealed to be one of Juniors helped shoots the back of Hartigan. Bob runs away just as police sirens are heard and Nancy lays on the lap of Hartigan. Hartigan quickly dies but believes that this the best way to save the the girl's life.

The next story is about a man named Marv who has a one night stand with a girl named Goldie. But quickly finds out that Goldie was killed while he was sleeping. As the police arrive, Marv flees the scene as he realises that he is being framed for her death. He decides he will get revenge on her behalf because she was the only woman who has ever been so kind to him. Hearing that Marv was on a mission, his parole officer Lucille warns him to stop looking for the killer. Due to his condition, she believes he has gone insane and is hallucinating about the killing. He asks many informants about what happened but in the end he asks a shady priest who tells him that he thinks the Roarks family were behind this. Quickly afterwards, the priest is killed by Marv for saying rude comments about Goldie. Just as he had murdered the priest, a woman who looks very much like Goldie attacked him. However, he just believes it's his mind playing games with him because of the condition he has. Marv goes to the Roark family farm and is hushes by the same stalker that killed Goldie. As he wakes he sees that he is in a basement and sees Lucille has also been taken. Lucille tells Marv about how the killer is actually a cannibal and how Goldie was prostitute. He manages to find out that the name of the cannibal is Kevin. Quickly, he manages to escape. The leader of the group of corrupt policemen shoots Lucille, but are then killed by Marv. The only one who wasn't killed was the leader because Marv wants to question him first. Marv finds out that the one behind the plotting of Goldie's murder was in fact Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark. Marv travels to old town which is Sin City's red light district to find out more about Goldie. However, he is taken by Goldie's twin sister Wendy, who is the same girl he thought he has hallucinated about when he was attacked. Wendy believes that Marv is the killer. After convincing to her that he wasn't the killer, they both return to the farm where Marv eventually kills Kevin. He confronts Cardinal Roark who confesses everything that he was part of in the murders. He finds out that Kevin was the Cardinal's ward, one of the two men who ate the prostitutes in order to 'consume their souls'. Marv manages to then kill the cardinal but is taken by his guards. Marv is rushed to hospital where policemen come to tell him to admit to the murder of Cardinal Roark, Kevin and their victims or they will kill his mother. He is then sentenced to death in an electric chair. Wendy comes to see him on death row and thanks him for helping her dead sister to get revenge. He is then placed in the electric chair and mocks the prison guards when it doesn't kill him. It is activated once more and this time, he is killed.

Shellie is pestered by her violent ex, Jackie Boy and his posy and he breaks into her apartment with his men. He doesn't notice that Shellie's new lover Dwight is also in the flat in the bathroom. When Jackie Boy goes in the bathroom. Dwight goes behind him and shoves his face in the toilet so that his face is covered in his own urine. He threatens to kill Jackie Boy if he doesn't leave Shellie alone. A mad Jackie leaves Shellie's flat and is followed by Dwight, not hearing Shellie's warnings. In Old Town, Jackie and his friends harrass a young prostitute named Becky. What Jackie doesn't know is that Dwight, Gail, the head of the prostitutes, his old lover and a martial arts expert, Miho are watching. When Jackie Boy threatens to kill Becky, Miho kills him and his friends. When the bodies are checked for personal effects, they find out that Jackie Boy was a Detective Lieutenant Jack Rafferty from Basin City Police and is considered a hero. If ever the police find out what happened to him, there would be a feud between the cops and the prostitutes. Dwights finds a tar pit where he takes the bodies to cover up the crime. However, he is attacked by ex IRA mercenaries hired by the boss of the mob, Wallenquist. Miho manages to save Dwight before he drowns in tar. The mercenary who is still alive runs to a nearby sewer with the head of Jackie Boy. Dwight and Miho work together to kill him. They take back the head and go back to Old Town. In the meantime, a mob enforcer, Manute, kidnaps Gail. Dwight trades Jackie's head in exchange for Gail's freedom. What Manute didn't know was that the head was loaded with explosives. This hides all evidence from the police and kills the kidnappers. The prostitutes kill Manute and the rest of the group because they knew it would be risky if they allowed any survivors. Becky, injured in the fight, escapes.

The last story involves Hartigan recovering in hospital whilst being told that Junior is in a coma and the legacy of Roark is at risk. Hartigan will be framed for all the crimes Junior has commited and if he tells anyone the truth, they will be killed. An appreciative Nancy was denied to testify against Hartigan. She promised that she would write to him every week while he is stuck in prison. Hartigan is sent to prison though he will not confess. After receiving a weekly letter from Nancy for 8 years, she stops writing. Scared that the Roark found Nancy and will hurt her, he confesses to everything and is given parole. He looks for Nancy not knowing that he is being followed by the yellow man. He finally finds her in a bar where she is an exotic dancer. He realizes he was followed and lead the yellow man to Nancy, so they both run away to Nancy's car not knowing that the yellow man was in the trunk. But it turns out that the yellow man was Junior all along. He attacks Hartigan and kidnaps Nancy taking her to the Roark farm to end what he began a long time ago. Hartigan uses his acting skills to fake a heart attack, which is his chance to kill Junior. Knowing that they will never escape from Senator Roark, Hartigan kills himself to make sure that Nancy is safe. Once again, he ends his life in return for Nancy's.

Hartigan is the 'hero'. He is portrayed as being determined and selfless. We find out that he is an ex detective, retiring due to him having angina. Even so, he risks his own life to save someone else's. We as viewers, end up feelings very sorry for him when his wife leaves him thinking that he was the one that raped Nancy. Nancy is portrayed as the victim. She is being held against her will and has no idea what is going on. However, due to what she almost went through, i think this is why she becomes an exotic dancer later on. Bob is a corrupt man. He pretends he is on Hartigan's side but it actually on Roark Juniors. However, we see Bob tell Hartigan not to go inside. Although he was  telling him to allow a crime to happen, he, in a way, was trying to protect him from being hurt. Roark Jr is very troubled. I believe he now has a better life but had a bad childhood. From what i can see, i think he had issues with his father when he was younger. I don't think his father was always there for him as he might be now. Senator Roark is very evil, he would rather make someone go down for a crime they didn't commit than have their son known as being the rapist and killer. This is a man who has a high status and a lot of money, so he doesn't want his son to ruin anything for him. Marv falls in love and in doing so he risks his own life more than once to try to get revenge for Goldie. We can see that he has had a tough life, and we know that he is quite tough seeing the amount of brawls he has had with his enemies. We know that he tried to avenge Goldie because she was the only person that was good to him. But even though he hasn't had the best life, he tries to help the ones he cares about and really appreciates friendliness.Wendy is a strong, protective and caring woman. We see that when she beats Marv up, thinking that he is the one that killed Goldie. Once she finds out that Marv didn't hurt Goldie, they team together. This shows us that she is very trusting and was a loving sister because she is trying to find who killed her. Shellie is a very shy but confident woman at the same time. We can also see that she is frightened of Jackie Boy. But she is quick to threaten him and his friends after Jackie Boy hits her. This shows us that she will not let herself be played as the victim when she clearly wants to stand up for herself. Jackie Boy is a coward who hits Shellie to feel powerful. He likes to be in control and the dominant figure. He is a violent character who makes us as viewers feel very scared for what he might do next. Dwight is the 'hero' of the story. He saves Shellie and threatens Jackie Boy to stay away from her or he will kill him. He shoves his head down he toilets to teach him a lesson. Jackie Boy cowardly runs away. Dwight follows him to show that this is his territory and that he will not let him treat a woman the way he did. We see that he is protective of Shellie.

All of the clips above allow the audience to feel scared, for example, when Shellie is thrown to the floor, the audience feel sympathy towards her because they want her to be strong and fight back. However, when she retaliates by talking back, the audience fear what Jackie Boy will do to her now that she is defending herself. The use of the scene being in black and white allows us to see the characters for what they really are instead of judging them based on what they could be wearing or the colour of their clothes etc. The use of iconography when Shellie's boyfriend holds a gun to Jackie Boy's head makes the viewers feel on edge as they don't know what these characters could do.

2000's

Memento

Momento is a film that was released in 2000. It is a psychological thriller that is shown differently in two different scenes. One is in black and white and the other is in reversed colour. This makes the audience see how mental the protagonist is. The husband of the man whose wife was mysteriously murdered has to to deal with short term memory loss. So, in order to remember what happened to his wife and who killed her, he must try to overcome his memory loss and he does so in a strange way.

I think that the husband is very caring and protective of his dead wife. And due to his memory loss, he could have easily forgotten his wife's murder. But, this clearly shows how important his wife meant to him if he was able to keep the memory of her death in his brain.

When looking at this clip, i noticed a variety of things that are very conventional to the thriller genre. For example, i noticed that there was silence building up to when the blonde man found the picture telling him to kill the man with the glasses. The use of silence makes the audience really think about what is happening aswell as feel frightened as to what is going to happen next. When the picture is found, sinister music can automatically be heard in the background, making the viewers feel on edge as to what the blonde man is going to do. The audience feel suspense as they wait for the next bad thing to happen. Another convention i have seen is the violence that occurs within this scene. Violence is typically seen in thriller films in order for the audience to feel fear because it shows that some characters have very bad sides to them.

2010

Black Swan

This film is based in a New York City Ballet company. The Swan lake is the theme of the show they are playing in the theatre and everybody including Nina Sayers, a fantastic ballet dancer. She really wants the part because she has been at this ballet school for a long time and has never gotten a part in anything before. Nina wins the part of the swan queen, and is perfect for the role of the white swan - Odette, but starts to slowly lose her mind as she is so focused on being perfect for the part of the black swan (Odile) in order to impress her mother and her teacher who she has strong feelings for.

Nina seems to be a very pressured dancer. She is very talented but goes way in over her head and becomes mentally ill. However, it isn't till the end of the film do we see how ill she was. She is a very angelic figure, being very sweet and timid, but she soon meets her demonic side which turns her into the human version of the black swan. During the film, we see Nina training in a room when all of a sudden the room's lights go off. I think this is a key clue in the movie because i believe this was when Nina lost herself and became dark psychologically. From then on, everything turned to the worst.

I think the target audience for this film is around 15 plus. Not only is the rating of this film a 15 anyway, but Nina Sayers is supposed to be a young adult, and this story very much appeals to people her age because in modern day, the children that work hard are often under pressure and are always scared to not be good enough. So the story line will make the audience feel as though they understand what she is going through. It is a very dramatic film which makes the young audience love it.

In the clip, the audience can see that Nina is hallucinating a darker presence within her, thinking that she is going crazy. The sinister music in the background makes the audience feel scared when they see a hallucination, as they know that it is just her mind playing games with her. The use of the close up shot, shows us her emotions deep down and makes us feel sympathy for her as the viewers know that she going slightly insane.

To conclude, i believe the thriller genre is exploring more and more different stories in order to scare and surprise. However, i believe that during the 1930's-1970's this was when the best thrillers were produced. In my opinion, this is due to the remarkable work that Alfred Hitchcock did. He directed and produced over 60 years in his lifetime. He used creative stories and made them into stories that would certainly entice and thrill the viewers.

Top 10 Thriller Films

In task 2, I researched audience figures for the top 10 thriller films. This picture below represents the box office figures.

Looking at the table, we can see that four of the rankings are made up of 'Saw' films. This is four out of the possible 7 films that are in this particular franchise. The first saw was released in 2004, where modern thrillers were just being introduced. Roughly every year after the first saw was released, a new saw came out. This allowed the producers, directors and actors to be given a lot of money. Without doing any research of my own, i would have thought that any sequel would be less popular than the original movie. However, this table shows other wise. We can see that the sequels actually had better figures. This meant that the original was lower down in the rankings table. We can see that they were a huge success, however i believe that if it wasn't for the original film, the sequels wouldn't have done so well. 

 I also noticed how some films that are quite old, were quite high on the list. For example, the eldest film on the table, 'Sea Of Love', which dates back to 1989, was quite high on the list. This surprised me because i would have expected it to be further down due to the lack of technology that was around then. This film is 12th on the chart with $58,571,513 being made altogether. I discovered that Silence of the Lambs, a 1991 film was 2nd on the list, even though it is slightly old. The thriller film managed to make $130,742,922 as its lifetime gross. The movie is about a top student at the FBI academy named Clarice Starling has been asked by Jack Crawford to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist who is also a scary, aggressive psychopathic cannibal. He is currently serving life behind bars in prison. There is another case where Crawford believes that Lecter can help, but in order to get the killer, Clarice must be the bait so that they can find him. 

Comparing Silence Of The Lambs to Saw, i think they were both very successful. Silence of the lambs earned $130,742,922 and Saw earned $55,185,045. But, when the films both opened out in cinemas we see that Saw received more money, $18,276,468 where as Silence Of The Lambs only received $13,766,814. I believe that this is because of the difference in times that they were released. For example, Saw was released in 2004, where more cinemas were around. Where as for Silence Of The Lambs, which was released in 1991, there weren't as many cinemas.

In conclusion, in order for a thriller to do very well, the narrative must be different from other films that have previously existed as well as an interesting storyline. The narrative is the main part of what makes a film good, but sound and editing also come into it. I have decided that i will use an original narrative that will allow the audience to have the same reaction that they have when watching on of these good thriller films. I have learnt from box office results that if the original of a film is successful by being interesting and unique, it is likely that the sequels to those films will be just as popular with their type of audience. By looking into the box office, I have learnt that my thriller piece, I must have an interesting opening sequence, this is so that it engages the viewers as soon as the film has started.