Our thriller and the conventions of the genre

The above image is from Zodiac, showing the attempt of an everyday man trying to solve a crime

Our chosen sub-genre for our thriller is a crime thriller, with elements of internal psychological thrillers too. Our thriller opening - which is yet to be titled - is about the uncovering of the murder of the protagonist's friend, and the opening sets up the struggle of solving the mystery and brining the killer to justice. The protagonist is suffering for memory loss due to the attack, and after years of not knowing the identity of the murderer, a lead is finally made when the main character recognises a distinctive tatoo which is the only memory he has of the incident.

As this is a crime thriller, certain conventions will come acompany it. The general conventions are that there is an unsolved crime, which the main character has a close realtion too, and strives to figure out the mystery themselves. This makes our thriller convention, however it may be less conventional because the main character is not a detective, but is a fellow victim of the crime which he wishes to solve. The plot draws parralells to the thriller Zodiac, as the main character is on a mission to discover the killer despite not being part of the investigation team. Our thriller will also have some internal psychological thriller features, because of the involvement of memory loss as a key part for the reason of the mystery. Conventions seen in this sub-genre of thrillers are a stuggle to overcome the issues with the mind to solve the mystery in question. An example would be the film Momento, which uses memory loss of the main character as a constant obsticle in uncovering the truth.

Jonny Hucker