Movie Genres: Thrillers - Essay Example

Directors use these elements of tension masterfully on their audiences, and can easily manipulate an audience’s level of anxiety or suspense with clever usage of music, action sequence, and dialogue. Movie-goers willfully oblige the director, eager to suspend belief and throw their emotions into the director’s crafty hands which increase or decrease the related tension and anxiety throughout the film as they bring the audience along for the ride. In three “thriller/suspense” genre films, “The Black Lagoon,” “The Planet of the Apes,” and “The Shining,” the directors masterfully utilize these elements to build tension and anxiety in the movie-goer. In all three movie clips, there is a noted lack of dialogue and a reliance on music and mood to increase the tension in the scene.

The directors use music to build tension and signal to the moviegoer that action is about to take place, create a crescendo of tension, and also bring the viewer down from the thrills he or she just experienced. In “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954), a B-movie monster-thriller, the scene is set with eerie music as the monster emerges and focuses on a tent with his victim inside. With no dialogue, the music builds and adds tension to the scene and reaches a crescendo as the beast attacks the person inside.

Without this music, the scene would not have the anxiety it produces in the viewer as the webbed claw grabs at the man. “The Planet of the Apes” (1968), a futuristic thriller, almost entirely depends on music to set the tempo of the chase. Again, the music creates and adds to the tension of the scene as the man tries to evade capture, with little or no dialogue, until the last famous “..you damned dirty ape!” quip from Charleton Heston at the end of the scene. “The Shining” (1980), a horror-thriller, also depends on the music to set the sinister tone of the scene.

Symbols and gongs lead to a crescendo of violins as the boy sees the past gory deaths of two girls haunting him. Once again, the music is key to a suspenseful, anxiety-riddled scene. All three films also have a monster or element of some kind that the characters fight against. In “Black Lagoon,” the monster comes from the swamp and is real, tangible, and threatening the survival of the characters in the film. “The Shining” has a more psychological monster--the demon from within, which threatens the survival of an isolated family.

And, finally, “Planet of the Apes” has an external element of master/slave that the characters fight against as they struggle for freedom and human dignity. This internal struggle and tension between the characters are vital to a thriller. There must be some fight for survival to build and create the tension and anxiety in the viewer the director hopes to elicit. This human trait of survival is inherent in our genes, and vicariously experiencing that struggle always creates the anxiety and uncertainty of survival necessary to label a film a “thriller.

” The “thrills” come from life and death and human survival. The films succeed in utilizing music and conflict to set the stage for thrilling tension-filled scenes. There is no need for extended dialogue to create this tension, as the human struggle for survival mixed with musical queues is enough to take the viewer to those dark places. Tension, anxiety, and uncertainty of survival all come together to create a thrilling experience for the audience members, and all three films are noted for the tension and memorable anxiety they create in the movie-goer.

Although the “Black Lagoon” and “Apes” have a more difficult time doing this, due to their campy costumes and awkward filming, they succeed due to the use of music and the human belief in those things that can get us when we are not looking. “The Shining” addresses that fear in all of us: the unknown world after death (and internal psychological struggles-- another paper for another time). The “thriller” genre is well defined in all three films, as they all contain the elements typical of such films. With masterful use of music and conflict, the directors play well against the audience’s expectations of anxiety, tension, and uncertainty of survival.