Conventions Of A Thriller Analysis

Analysis of the Conventions of a Thriller

The Crazies

The movie I am analysing for typical conventions of a thriller is The Crazies and this is a well-known movie and it is about the inhabitants of a small Iowa town suddenly plagued by insanity and then death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply.

The first scene starts with the credits of the two companies that produced and distributed the film and they are Overture Films and Participant Media. This is conventional of any movie to have the companies at the start but to emphasise to the audience that it is a Thriller they have put no music to it and have faded the diegetic sound of the first part of the scene in. The first shot is of a burning building in a street, which is in America in a rural village and this starts the audience guessing what has happened? It then cuts to a few other scenes of fire in the village and finally finishes with an establishing shot of the whole street up in flames and deserted and it is a conventional of a Thriller to have a scene by having chilling music which entices the audience to a scene which gives the audience incentive to watch more of the movie by involving an action/spooky/intense shots. All the sound in this first scene is diegetic all the way through which adds an intense and authentic affect to the scene also they have made the editing of the scene noticeable because you notice the change of shots and these different angles gives the viewer a unnerving feeling as they do not know what is going to happen and the tempo of the editing is slow paced.

The second scene starts with a black screen with text saying 2 days earlier and non-diegetic country music is playing over the top. After this it cuts to a few establishing shots of rural American fields and it is about midday and the country music is still playing and this is parallel with the visuals on screen. It is typical of a thriller to have juxtaposing scenes and it is also stereotypical of a thriller/horror to show you present day and then go into the past so it makes the audience start to think what has happened. After the establishing shots it cuts to a long shot which is a side view of the road and has a typical American police car driving down it and it cuts to a close up of the sheriffs badge after that it cuts to a view of half the steering wheel and the windscreen and the camera focuses on the long road and then the sheriffs hand and you notice that he is married and this may become relevant later in the movie. Finally it cuts to an high angle establishing shot, which is on a crane, and it is looking right down the street and this shot makes the audience notice that it was the same street was on fire and they have made the audience notice by using the same shot of when the street was on fire. The sheriff’s car then drives from underneath the camera into the street. The sounds in these shots have the country music continuously flowing through them and the tempo of the editing in this scene is slow which shows that there isn’t any danger also this street looks like a safe environment and leaves the audience guessing what could have happened in those two days and this adds a sense of suspense of what will happen in the movie.