Genre

What does the term 'genre' mean?

Genre refers to a category of media products that are classified as being similar in form or type. In terms of the key components of a film, the term 'genre' falls under the macro elements ('macro' meaning big). Film genres have been formed by conventions that change over time. Guess the genre:

Yep, this is the Western genre. These images show a cowboy, a Stetson hat and a spur and represent the few conventions of a Western film- in other words, these features are what make it acceptable for us to say what genre a film belongs to.

Thriller is a genre of film, so what should I expect from a thriller?

A thriller usually contains a resourceful hero, a better equipped villain, a MacGuffin, red herrings, cliff hangers, a fast-paced plot with music that successfully creates tension. A MacGuffin refers to an object which drives the plot forward but really has little or no significance in the long-run. A red-herring is something that misleads the audience from the actual issue.

Alfred Hitchcock is widely accepted as the "master" of the thriller genre because he provided us with archetypal examples of such features in his thrillers: North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds. Later on, I will do research into these films to analyse how successful he was which each feature in each film.

Examples of thrillers:

And sub-genres?

A sub-genre is a subcategory of a genre because they usually contain a mixture of features from another genre of film. For instance, a 'disaster' film such as The Impossible, which follows a family in Thailand caught in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, is a sub-genre of action.

The Twilight Saga is a fantasy which falls under sci-fi and horror. This sub-genre often follows events which do not occur in real life; usually involving myths, magic and the extraordinary.