Thriller Films: The Stepfather

Thriller is a genre that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as the main elements. A common subgenre is psychological thrillers. The political and paranoid thrillers also became widely popular. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

I chose to write about The Stepfather. The film opens with Grady Edwards transforming himself in the bathroom. He shaves off his beard, dyes his hair and takes out his brown contact lenses. He goes downstairs with his luggage and as he leaves, the camera reveals the dead bodies of his wife and three children. The following scene shows Grady meeting a single mother and her two children at the supermarket. 

The film follows their lives, and the events that take place as Grady tries to kill the family once again. It ends with another attempted massacre and Grady going missing. The film ends as a cliffhanger, where the audience and left wondering what would happen next.

Alfred Hitchcock's bomb theory is put into play in the film as the film begins slowly with Grady being very calm and nice to everyone but the audience are just waiting for him to explode. The bomb theory was created to show how the film begins slowly and calm, with the audience being 'reeled' into it. And then suddenly, the bomb explodes, in this case, Grady explodes and goes into a killing frenzy.

The thriller techniques that have been used in the film create a sense of anxiety and make the audience excited as well as scared for the characters. When they have been lulled into a sense of false security, the unexpected happens. These techniques ensure a successful thriller film.