Audience for the thriller genre

Psycho thrillers - this generally involves a psychologically disturbed character and gets the audience into their head to show how messed up the film is due to this particular character. Silence of the lambs is a great example as the film messes with the audiences head giving you an insight to how hannibal thinks, linking to our doctor and his mind state within ours.

A thriller genre: Consists of keeping the audience tense and suspenseful. It also uses excitement to link in with the suspense and tention as another main feature within thriller films. The most common sub-genre of thrillers are psycho thrillers, these particular thrillers consist of a psychologically diturbered murderer and a good hearted main character fighting against this mental foe.

Main goal:  To keep the audience anticipating in order to be able to play with there minds and constantly suprise them when they are least expecting it. The anxiety created by this keep the audience glued to their seat constantly trying to guess the plot.

The target audience: Of thriller based films as well as depending on the sub-genre are normally thrill seekers that wish to constantly think ahead of the story. People that like to follow the plot and try to guess what will happen are a perfect audience for thrillers as it gives the director new ideas. When this kind of audience are constantly predicting the outcome of the plot it allows the director to go completely against any ideas the audience may have and suprise them in ways they would not have thought of.
- For example - In leon the deaths of characters throws the audience into another direction. Generally children and main characters are not killed off, however a small child is killed in the first half of the film and the main character is killed off at the end. This type of thriller strays away from stereotypical plots also leading the audience away whilst watching.
This therefore rules out the younger generation as a potential target audience as they would need to be able to keep up and understand the plot of the film as well as the twist and turns that feature within the genre.

Online research: From doing online research I found that the typical age range that thriller films are popular with is 55+ years. I have already evaluated certificate ratings for our film and have decided that it was a 18 rating, this therefore allows only people over 18 to watch our film. As our film features a doctor and is quite a modern and clever spin, I believe our audience would mostly be males aged 25+. 

Rhianna Henson-Smith