What is a Thriller?

The original meaning of the word 'thriller' is to pierce
The creator of a thriller's main objective is to pierce through the audience's layer of security and safeness, making them feel as scared or uncomfortable as possible. Thrillers rely on fear, apprehension and suspense, and usually play upon your basic childhood worries by including things that could have frightened you as a young child. Thrillers create tension by raising questions and presenting egnima codes to the audience, which leaves us wanting more. Tension is also created through the use of delay, so that there is a sense of relief when something finally happens.

There are a variety of different types of thriller. One of the most commonly used in movies are phycological thrillers which explore people's minds, dealing with issues such as schitzophrenia, getting inside the mind of the killer. At the end of these movies, the secrets are usually revealed.
Another very common type of thriller is horror. This type of movie involves a great deal of blood and gore, making the audience feel shocked and repulsed by something that they are not supposed to see.
Supernatural thrillers are also used. These play on the audience's fear of ghosts and things of the paranormal. They sometimes deal with the concept of demons and the devil. A typical example of a supernatural thriller is 'The Exorcist.'

We also learnt that a key theme of many successful thrillers is voyeurism. The word voyeurism derives from the French word 'voyeur' which translates as 'someone who watches.' (usually without their object of interest knowing that they are being watched) As you can imagine, people who make thrillers could use the idea of voyeurism to create rather a creepy storyline. The voyeur in these films is usually a stalker, watching the person or people he is about to kill or torture. There is a lot of irony in this as we (the audience) know the killer is there, yet the killer's victim does not.
In some cases, the style of filming forces us as an audience to become the voyeur. This is when we are made to watch a character being killed, tortured or placed in an equally terrible situation. This makes us feel slightly uncomfortable as, again, we are seeing something we shouldn't be seeing.

Thrillers can also be very sadomastic as it usually involves the audience taking pleasure in the character's horrible misfortune. It also helps if the audience are able to empathise with the character, so that they can feel the pain they are going through to a greater effect.