The Hollow Pond
MAHD Productions
Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lodger: A Story Of The London Fog” was a silent film made in 1927, an early thriller film made in England. Hitchcock is often credited with helping to shape the modern day thriller genre through this silent film about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper type serial killer based in London whose victims are usually young blonde women. Another example would be the film “Blackmail” (1929), about a woman from London who kills a man when he tries to rape her. The film was released both as a silent film and a sound film.
“The man who knew too much” was a British suspense film made by Alfred Hitchcock.
The Ghost Walks is a 1934 horror thriller film directed by Frank R . Strayer. It starts with a theatrical producer and his secretary stranded after their car has crashed. The take refuge nearby at Dr Kents. While they are staying there, they notice a patient is acting weird and ask about it. They are told it is the anniversary of her husband’s murder. At dinner they discuss murder when all of a sudden the lights go out and strange and mysterious events start to occur.
~Daniel Bukenya
Early German drama-thriller film "M" (1931), about a serial killer who preyed on children and thought to be influenced by real life cases from killers "terrorizing Germany (at the time , such as) Haarmann, Grossmann, Kürten, Denke" (as said by director Fritz Lang) was ranked # 33 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010 and has been described by Graham Greene as "looking through the eye-piece of a microscope, through which the tangled mind is exposed, laid flat on the slide: love and lust; nobility and perversity, hatred of itself and despair jumping at you from the jelly." Director Fritz Lang considered M to be one of his favourite films due to the social criticism angle the film took ( At the end of the film, with mothers crying at the verdict, one of the characters, Elsie's mother,says,"One has to keep closer watch over the children." The screen then goes black as she adds, "All of you.")
~Hannah Lee
Early Thrillers, 1920s-1930s
1950- 1959
Stage fright directed by Alfred Hitchcock. His daughter first appeared in this movie. The movie is based on a book called the running man.
Strangers On A Train is another film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is about a group of strangers on a train who are being murdered one by one and they must figure out who it is before they all wind up dead.
MR. Arkadin AKA Confidential Report was written and directed by `Orson Welles. This 1995 thriller film was shot in several locations across Europe including London, Munich and Paris. The story was based on several episodes of the radio series The Lives Of Harry Lime. Multiple versions of the film were released as Orson Welles missed the deadline for editing so the producer decided to release several different edits of the film. The Character Arkadin was based of a real life Arms dealer, Basil Zaharoff. Welles described this film as the biggest disaster of his life, which suggests that he wasn’t happy with it.
~Daniel Bukenya
1960-1969
The film Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock was a classic thriller from this time period. It focuses on a secretary who has embezzled a large amount of money and ends up in a secluded hotel with a disturbed hotel manager. He kills the woman and is later caught out as the murderer.
Touch Of Evil is an American crime thriller directed by and starring Orson Welles. The film opens with a three-minute, twenty-second tracking shot, which is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest long takes in cinematic history. This film is one of the last examples of film noir. Film Noir is a particular style used to describe some Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. It is associated with low-key black and white visuals. It generated around $2,237,659 even though it only had a budget of $829,000. It originally ran for 95 minutes but in 1976 an alternate version of the film was released and it ran for 108 minutes.
Seth Holt directed Taste Of Fear and it is a British thriller film written in the 1960s. It was not very popular in the UK and the US but it was in the rest of Europe. It was shot in black and white, which led to its success in the rest of Europe and inspired other short films similar to it
~Daniel Bukenya
Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises were all directed by Christopher Nolan. They received large amounts of praise for the trilogy made. The Dark Knight Rises made over $1Billion Dollars. The Dark Knight Trilogy is one of the most popular to be made.
Furthermore new sub-genres have been made. An example of one would be comedy Thriller. The film Mr and Mrs Smith was seen as a comedy thriller.
Crime thrillers have proven popular and the film "Now You See Me" was given a good report by film critics.
The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) saw young FBI agent Clareece Starling (Jodie Foster) attempt to uncover the identity of a psycopathic serial killer by the name of Buffalo Bill who had been kidnapping,murdering and skinning his victims (usually young women) by talking to respected psychiatrist turned psycopath, Hannibal Lecter who is believed to have the answers to their questions, yet be a very powerful mind manipulator. The film was very well received with actors Anthony Hopkins,Ted Levine and Jodie Foster garnering much acclaim for their outstanding performances. The film won the five big Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Jonathan Demme), Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodie Foster), and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) (Ted Tally), making it only the third film in history to accomplish that feat. The Silence Of the Lambs was also listed as one of the 100 Greatest films in the past 100 years by the American Film Institute with the original poster for the movie being named "best film poster of the last 35 years" in 2006 at the Key Art Awards.
~Hannah Lee
Seven or Se7en (1995) is an American Thriller film directed by David Fincher, written by Andrew Kevin Walker and starring Brad Pitt as recently transferred Detective David Mills and Morgan Freeman as soon to retire Detective William R. Somerset who are hunting a killer that uses the idea of "the 7 Deadly Sins" to carry out his killings. The film grossed $327million (at the box office internationally) and was a commercial success, garnering mostly positive reviews from critics.
Gary Arnold, from The Washington Times, praised the cast of the film and said: "The film's ace in the hole is the personal appeal generated by Mr. Freeman as the mature, cerebral cop and Mr. Pitt as the young, headstrong cop. Not that the contrast is inspired or believable in itself. What gets to you is the prowess of the co-stars as they fill out sketchy character profiles". High profile actors such as Pitt and Freeman help to generate interest in a film as they are seen as reliable by an audience for constantly providing outstanding performances.
~Hannah Lee
1990s-Present
I researched the history of thriller films to find if there were any patterns between them. It would make it easier to write our own thriller if we knew the typical codes and conventions of these classic thrillers and modern thrillers.
-Daniel Bukenya
Researching the history of thriller helped me to see the way we today have been shaped and influenced by early thriller. Many of the early thriller films were silent films and filmed in black and white yet, have similarities with the types of thriller movie made today; for example we use many of the codes and conventions used in early thriller, with stock characters such as a serial killer/ murderer (usually male but suggestively a female in film Basic Instinct (1992) ), the victim(s) (who is only seen briefly at the beginning maybe as an example of the types of death the killer carries out), the Detective whose duty it is to find the killer (usually a male protagonist but seen as a female in film Silence Of the Lambs) and possibly a witness to the crime (possibly a victim that has escaped).
-Hannah Lee
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Hannah Lee
