Thrillers/horrors are a genre of literature, film, video gaming and television programming that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as the main elements.

Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods such as; a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, suspense, excitement, tension, terror.

INTRODUCTION

A genuine, standalone thriller is a film that provide thrills and keeps the audience cliff-hanging at the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax.

Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

NATURE OF PROTAGONIST

The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.

The antagonist in the Thriller genre is predictably as “bad” as the protagonist is “good”.

Thriller antagonists then are frequently much darker, with much simpler and more selfish motivations.

NATURE OF ANTAGONIST

An atmosphere of creepy menace and sudden violence, crime and murder characterize thrillers or horrors.

Most horror or thriller movies follow a one-by-one death trend.

Brutality showed in horror or thriller movies is very high compared to any other genre of movies.

SHAPE OF DRAMATIC ACTION

Catalytic event in horror/thriller movies is mostly a character who is related to an event of the past. It is that event which drives the antagonist or protagonist to take the story forward.

CATALYTIC EVENT

The “resolution” of horror/thriller movies is the most unusual factor that sets apart its kind from other genres.

THE RESOLUTION

It is in these movies where we barely get to see a happy ending. When the climax is resolved and we see everything coming to settlement, there is a new twist, leaving the audience mostly to an open ending.

Horror and thriller movies mostly follow a non-linear narrative pattern. The obvious reason for this is to increase the intensity of suspense. The audience never really knows who the characters are or what might come next from them.

NARRATIVE STYLE

Flashbacks play a very important part in introducing characters in such movies. This is mainly because it is the past which drives the story forward.

The tone in horror/thriller movies is very dark and creepy. Nothing seems to make complete sense until the entire movie is watched. Characters or events seem to unfold themselves layer by layer.

TONE

Dipayan Bhattacharjee

Rundolf Mawlieh

Llewelyn Fernandez

CASE STUDY

The protagonist in the film is a doctor, who is stuck in an old bathroom with a photographer. The doctor is a man of suspense. Nothing is known or can really be understood about him when the movie starts but secrets keep unfolding as the story progresses.

He seems to be a solid hypocrite who at the same time is a very self obsessed man and a nescient much confused.

NATURE OF PROTAGONIST

The doctor in the film shows very calm and cool attitude in the beginning of the film till he knows that his family is in trouble, and that is when he loses his mind completely.

The antagonist here seems to have a different kind of mindset altogether. In the film, he is known as “Jigsaw”. Intelligent with the way he planned about the events that must take place with his victims. Technically speaking, he never really killed any of his victims but found ways to get them to kill themselves.

He would term his acts as “Games” he played with the victims. He was a man of fair play though. If his victims managed to play the games by the rules and come out alive (Eg: Amanda) he would let them go.

“Insane in the membrane” is the phrase that goes so well with the nature of “Jigsaw”. He earned this status because of his unconventional but insanely unethical behavior.

NATURE OF ANTAGONIST

Another strange character of “Jigsaw” is that he loved to watch his victims as they would try and struggle for their lives.

Ruthless to the core of his soul, the irony of his character is that he would only take those people as his targets who he thought did not value life as they should.

The film was inflamed with a lot of twisted dramatic structures.

The most intriguing factor of the film was the fact that it kept on holding to an eerie consequent forms of suspense and ultimately, comes out with a bang of surprises.

SHAPE OF DRAMATIC ACTION

The catalytic event in this film would be the various secrets that keep unfolding about each of the primary characters, viz. the photographer, the doctor, the policeman, the various victims of Jigsaw, and Jigsaw himself.

CATALYTIC EVENT

Saw is a film which unlike most other movies does not end on a very positive note. In addition to that, it ends almost in an open ended format. At the end of the film we find one of the characters, (the photographer) being trapped in the filthy bathroom forever with barely any hopes of escape. The antagonistgets the upper hand and the protagonists are all left to suffer.

THE RESOLUTION

The film follows are non-linear narrative structure. Each of the characters are introduced, not in serial order, but as and when required by the script to let the audience know more about them.

Flash-backs played a very important role in the narrative structure as the audience gets to know more about most of the characters through flash-backs.

NARRATIVE STYLE

The tone followed by the director in the making of this film is keeping every character in deep suspense. None of the characters seem to know about the other, except Jigsaw, who seems to know about everyone. Most of the characters also carry a high self-pride which does not allow them to bend in front of the other. They all try to show their own importance and power, whereas they all were a part of Jigsaw’s game.

TONE

GAME OVER..!!