Audience Expectations of the Thriller Genre

This is my second set of primary research where i have created a questionnaire and given it to ten people to find out what they expect when watching a thriller and what they found in the most recent thriller they watched. I have created this research in order to help me establish what i need in my thriller opening that is going to appeal to as many people as possible as a thriller.

Within my questionnaire i had the following questions:

1. What do you expect to feel when watching a thriller?
2. What was the last thriller you saw?
3. Why did you see this?
4. What scared you about the thriller i.e. gory detail, unexpected actions?
5. Was the film a conventional thriller or did it have something unusual about it?
6. Was the film black and white, in colour or both?
7. Was the film in chronological or non-chronological order?
8. Was the film in a lavish or a grim and tatty setting?
9. When you think of a thriller what is the first thing that comes to your mind and why?

Here is an example of a filled in questionnaire:

This is what i found from my results:

All the films except from Psycho are very recent films and Saw 4 has been evidently the most popular of the lot. This shows me that people are more interested in watching new films, older films such as Psycho have become dated, and people today are more interested in the gore and the action within the genre, i think the interpretation of the meaning of the thriller genre has been perverted since technology and CGI has become so advanced and people have forgotten, or even the younger generation are oblivious to what thrillers were like when they first came about, and now only know the blood and violence packed types there are around today. This is evident by the fact that people have classed Saw 4 as a thriller rather than a horror, though there are thriller aspects within the film, Saw should technically be classed as a horror as the storyline is set to scare rather than thrill.

i can back up this statement with my next set of results, which are from the final question on my questionnaire. I asked what first comes to mind when people think of a thriller. Here are some of the different answers people came up with:

'Blood, guts and death because they are death films'

'Espianage - due to the secret nature of this activity and the opportunities for plot twists and double crossing etc.'

'Boo! - as i think of being scared'

'Trembling'

'Blood, gore, shocks'

'Tension, death and danger'

'Violence beacuse thrillers always try to scare you with violence and gory details'

These are all fair opinions and are apparent in thriller films - but not all thriller films. Peoples views of thrillers have been steered towards 'blood' and 'gore' as that is what is generally evident in todays thrillers, but when you look at Hitchcock style thrillers you don't need these characteristics to make a thriller successful, some people would even argue that these characteristics makes a thriller less effective. When you look at Hitchcock's Psycho he does have death in it but there is no gore, no guts whatsoever, yes there is blood - but not how people would expect to see it in todays thrillers, people would expect blood all over the killers face and sprayed all over the walls and the floor but with Psycho the most blood you see is being drained down the plughole with water from the shower. All the violence and death is implicated but not shown as it is left to the audiences imagination which is a very powerful tool and by doing this he managed to make the film renowned for his clever use of leaving the death to the audiences imagination.

Someone also put 'espianage' as the first thing that comes to mind when they think of a thriller, this is just one style of thriller, not all thrillers in general, which shows that this persons mind has been steered towards one type of thriller and their mind has been closed to all other styles.

People have also put 'tension' and 'trembling' and 'being scared', these are fair opinions, and tension is key in a thriller, it's key in alot of genres, but it is one of the main features used in a thriller in order to make it effective, but to be scared to the extent of trembling is a bit over the top, you don't go to the cinema to watch a thriller and 25 minutes into the film the entire room is shaking. Some thrillers may scare people so much that they tremble with fear, and this is probably more apparent in horror style thrillers but not all thrillers are made to scare people, some are made to psyche out the viewer/ mess with their head, some are set out to cause tension, some are set out to create adrenaline. Every thriller is different and my question was very genralised, i knew i was going to get a broad range of answers but i didn't do it to say every one was wrong but to find out how different people generalise thrillers because this is how different audiences are created, and this type of research helps people to establish what their audience want from their film.

When i asked whether the last thriller people had watched was in colour/chronological order/in a grim setting, i was thinking about general thriller conventions and whether they are still used often and whether the audience pick up on these aspects. Here is what i found.

Two people didn't circle some which tells me that not all people do notice these aspects, either that or the film didn't make it clear enough for the viewer to identify making it a poor thriller in that aspect.

It suprised me to see how many thrillers never set their storys in a lavish setting, they are always run down areas.

Finally, when people go to see thrillers they expect to feel different things, these are the different feelings i collected from my ten questionnaires.

shocked x1
scared x4
jumpy x2
engrossed in the story and compelled to watch x1
tension x1
excitement x3
adrenaline x2
fear x2
nerves x1
anticipation x1
unsure of the ending x2
suspense x1
surprised x1
entertained x1

This shows me how varied audiences are, and how many different feelings thrillers are expected to create. With my thriller opening i have to create a film that is going to meet as many of these as possible without overcomplicating or confusing the storyline.