Thriller Sub-genres

Thriller films are often sub-divided into categories known as sub-genres. The following are the types of sub-genres:

Thriller of murderous passion - Organized around the triangular grouping of husband, wife or lover. The central scene is generally the murder of one member of the traingle by one or both of the other members. The emphasis is clearly on the criminal protagonist. The criminal motive is generally passion or greed.

Political thriller - Organized around a plot to assassinate a political figure or a revelation of the essential conspiratorial nature of governments and their crimes against people. These films generally document and dramatize the acts of assassins, conspirators, or criminal governments as well as the oppositional acts of victim-societies, countercultures or martyrs.

Thriller of acquired identity - Organized around a protagonist's acquistion of an unaccustomed identity, his or her behaviour in coming to terms with the metaphysical and physical consequences of this identity, and the relationship of this acquistion to a murderous plot.

Psychosomatic thriller - Organized around the psychotic effects of a trauma on a protagonists current involvement in a love affair and a crime or intrigue. The protagonist is always a victim - generally of some past trauma and often of real villians who take advantage of his or her masochistic guilt.

Thriller of moral confrontion - Organized around an overt antithetical confrontation between a character representing good or innocence and a character representing evil. These films are often constructed in terms of elaborate dualities which emphasize the parallels between the victim and the criminal.

Innocent-on-the-run thriller - Organized around an innocent victim's coincidental entry into the midst of global intrigue. The victim often finds himself running from both the villians as well as the police.