Section one: The thriller genre

Section one The Thriller Genre:

A thriller is a film that provides thrills and keeps the audience cliff-hanging at the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the character(s) is placed in a menacing situation, a mystery, or an escape from which escaping seems impossible. Life is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation.

Thrillers mostly take place in ordinary suburbs/cities. Though sometimes, they may take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, Polar Regions, or the high seas. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger. However, more common in crime thrillers, they may also be "hard men" accustomed to danger, like police officers and detectives. While such heroes have traditionally been men, women lead characters have become increasingly common.

Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must stop the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. While a murder mystery would be spoiled by a premature disclosure of the murderer's identity, in a thriller the identity of a murderer or other villain is typically known all along. Thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements. While a mystery climaxes when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others. In thrillers influenced by film noir and tragedy, the compromised hero is often killed in the process.

Martin Rubin wrote a book about thrillers aptly named thrillers.

There are 7 practioners  of the thriller genre
CK Chesterton: The  Transformed City
Chesterton was a British author
said " thrillers are the poetry of life "
the use of an ordinary urban environment  into anew extraordinary one
Northrop Frye: The Heroic Romance
the hero is an ordinary person thrusted into an extraordinary circumstance
the way of the world is changed slightly (like altering time )
John Cawelti: The Exotic
modern city with enchantment  and some kind of mystery  with some kind unfamiliarity, includes artifacts from strange lands / cultures
WH Matthews: Mazes & Labyrinths
ORIGIN OF GEEK MYTHOLOGY
the hero is usually in trouble
full of twists and turns to find the bad guy
metaphor for narrative
Pascal Banitzer: Partial Vision
audience see little to nothing
what we don't see is as important to what do see
it's like a unlimited prison
blind spots introduced to add suspense and unanswered questions
Lars Ole Saurberg:Concealment& Protraction
concealment hides things from the audience
protraction is like a big game of hide & seek
Noel Carrol: The Question & Answer Model
audience has question that needs to be asked
probability factor things that are likely to happen are likely to be boring  as opposed to stuff unlikely to happen
moral factor morally right outcome increases involvement