THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
The Vampire Diaries is about a high school girl who get’s involved with two vampire boyfriends and their drama. The thriller genre is portrayed throughout The Vampire Diaries TV program through the use of intense drama and quite a lot of dramatic music. There are also a lot of flashbacks used in this program which creates the sense of mystery and sometimes bring confusion to the audience, this therefore keeps the audience on the edge of their seat and keeps them still watching and wanting to find out more. This is because flashbacks used in The Vampire Diaries portray the idea of lots of secrets going on around the town from many years ago in which all the vampires and humans live in together. There are quite a lot close-up and extreme close up shots used to let the audience be aware of the emotions in the characters. There is a lot of use of low-key lighting and shadows, which connotes darkness and evil, this is used to sometimes foreshadow something bad happening later on. This therefore keeps the audiences attention and brings excitement as well as tension to them. Shadows also signify the inner darkness of certain characters, mainly the Vampires; this also creates much more tension as the vampires are seen as ‘blood thirsty killers’. There are also a lot of blood, violence and death in each episode which are also aspects used in thrillers. Also, each episode finishes with a cliffhanger, this leaves the audience full of questions and eager to find out what is going to happen, this keeps audiences’ watching this TV program.
PROGRAMMES THAT GIVE INSIGHT TO THRILLER
BREAKING BAD
Breaking Bad is an American thriller TV program, about a chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer and only has two year to live. He decides to get into the life of crime and drugs to ensure that his family will have a secure future because he has nothing to lose. This program has many scenes, which involves characters racing against time to complete crimes. The aspect of race against time keeps the audience at the edge of their seat and keeps them excited. The music used creates tension and the sense of the characters having to complete the crimes in a quick amount of time, this links back to the aspect of race against time. At the end of each episode cliff hangers are also used, this ensure that the audience carry on watching each episode as they will be left with questions and left wanting more. Breaking Bad also gives an insight to thriller by using weapons such as guns and knifes, also the program revolves around drugs, as the main storyline is about the drug methamphetamine this connotes that there will be violence, death and insanity. The aspects of thriller used in this program bring up many different emotions to the audience, such as excitement and anxiety when the characters are put into dangerous situations, which may make it seem like there’s no escape for them.
Marija Gustainyte
This page was made because it helped us to understand the similarities and differences that thriller films and thriller programs have.
Marija Gustainyte