Ahmad Fadhil Saleh

Mirrors, low key lighting, shadows, obtrusive editing, quick cuts, changes in camera angle, tension music, stairs, flashbacks, use of photographs, black and white, disorientation of time and space, montage editing

Specific to psychological thrillers: two or more characters preying upon one another’s minds, deceptive mind games, trying to demolish each other’s mental state

Mirrors are used as a convention of a thriller film through the use of reflection of one’s soul and inner self

Mirrors represent the darkness within some characters

An example is ‘Mirrors’ directed by Alexandré Aja

Shadows are closely related with low key lighting and are used as a convention of a thriller film

They are used to represent the inner darkness within beings, and can also add to tension and eeriness that is created

Quick shots and obtrusive editing are used frequently in thriller films to accentuate the feelings of suspense and tension

They are often used during an important or particularly ‘thrilling’ scene – sometimes creating a disorientation of time and space, by using montage editing

Flashbacks contribute to a sense of time and space disorientation in a thriller and this confuses the audience

It is also a convention of a thriller film because it can display what has happened in the past to give the audience an insight into characters’ pasts

An example is in ‘Momento’ by Christopher Nolan

Black and white is another of the conventions of a thriller, because it accentuates the use of shadows, and can often appear quite eerie and ‘dark’.

An example is ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock