1. Subgenres
By Alyssa Grieveson

2. What is a subgenre?
A subgenre is a subcategory that is featured
within films along with the main genre of the
film.
The director uses a subgenre to include certain
traits from another genre within the film to
make it more interesting and appeal to a specific
target audience.

3. Mystery Thrillers:
Mystery film is a sub-genre which is similar to crime films
and at times the thriller genre.
Mystery thrillers focus on the effort of the detective or
private investigator to solve the mystery circumstances of a
crime by the clues, investigation and clear deduction.
Examples of mystery thriller films:
• Shutter Island
• The Others
• The Sixth Sense
• Inception

4. Crime Thrillers:
Crime thrillers are very similar to mystery thrillers.
Crime thrillers focuses on dark, quiet surroundings.
They also include both fast paced and suspense
action.
Examples of crime thrillers:
• Inception
• Seven
• Taken
• The Departed

5. Action Thrillers:
Action thrillers are made to keep the audience on
the edge of there seat and to keep them
entertained.
Action thrillers are sometimes based around some
what of a true story, but just the use of weapons
and the extent of the actions are over exaggerated.
Examples of action thriller films:
• Taken
• Insidious
• Heat

6. Supernatural thrillers:
Supernatural thrillers include strong characters often with
a supernatural power. It also includes elements such as
ghosts and vampires.
Supernatural thrillers are typically filmed in a dark/night
environment, because this creates more suspense and
sets the atmosphere a lot better for the film.
Examples of supernatural thriller films:
• Paranormal activity
• The Exorcist
• Mama
• The Women In Black

7. Conspiracy Thrillers:
Conspiracy thrillers, features protagonists which are
often journalists or amateur investigators who find
themselves (often inadvertently) pulling on a small
thread which unravels a vast conspiracy that
ultimately goes "all the way to the top.”
Examples of conspiracy thriller films:
• The Bourne Identity
• All The President’s Men
• Angels & Demons

8. Psychological Thrillers:
A psychological thriller is a fictional thriller story which
emphasizes the psychology of its characters and their
unstable emotional states.
They have similarities to Gothic and detective fiction in
the sense of sometimes having a "dissolving sense of
reality“ with complex and tortured relationships between
obsessive and pathological characters.
Examples of psychological thriller films:
• Memento
• Saw
• Identity

9. Political Thrillers:
A political thriller, is a thriller that is set against the
backdrop of a political power struggle.
They tend to involve extra-legal plots designed to give
political power to someone, while his opponents try to
stop them. Political thrillers can be based on true facts
and can involve national or international political
scenarios.
Examples of political thriller films:
• Argo
• The Ghost writer
• The Assignment