Thrillers

Getting ready for TCM's "A Night At The Movies: The Horrors Of Stephen King" and watching their 2009 documentary "The Suspenseful World Of Thrillers."  Alfred Hitchcock is featured quite heavily in this documentary.  Brian DePalma is also discussed, in particular how he was influenced by Hitchcock.

Apt Pupil:

Apt Pupil is discussed, through not at length, in its connection to Nazi's.  Of course, Nazi's are often quite important to the thriller genre, in particular in Hitchcock's work.  Guy Hendrix Dyas comments that "More modern directors, like Bryan Singer, have revisited Nazi's in an interesting way with films like Apt Pupil where you see an interest in where did they all go, and what happens once the uniform is put away?  What have these people become?"

Singer not only directed Apt pupil, but another Nazi movie, Valkyrie.  Singer says that Apt Pupil was an unusual reflection of himself.  "When I read it it was about this young boy who for some reason was fascinated with the atrocities the Nazi's committed in the concentration camps.  When I was very young, I was quite obsessed with that subject matter.  I think as a Jewish kid, suddenly realizing that such a thing happened at such a level by such a sophisticated society -- could this happen in my country, the United States to us Jews?"

"And then something about the iconography -- the boots , the grandeur, the swastikas, the whole Nazi thing fascinated me.  I don't think I would have blackmailed a Nazi war criminal if one was living across the street, I probably would have called the police.  But when I read this novella, I thought, wow, what a fascinating exploration!  That would be something my alter ego might do."

Other King Thrillers?

King is usually firmly typecast as a horror only author.  Some people have come to appreciate Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption, but I think most people still think of him as monsters only.  King's ability to cross, even mix, genre's is actually quite incredible.

So what is a "Thriller"?  One commentator explains the genre, "A thriller to me was always a title for an action film that doesn't have the budget. We don't have the car chases or the explosions or the battle scenes, but you will still be on the edge of your seat."

But novels don't have to worry about budget!  Thus you can have action mixed with suspense mixed with thriller and it all works.  Have you noticed that quite often movies are unable to make those transitions between genre's, thus when a movie is translated to film, it has to choose what part of the story it is going to tell.  Why movies like Dolores Claiborne got so messed up.  The story was unable to move so freely among the genre's as King's novel had.

Actor Norman Lloyd (Saboteur), suggests that we have to separate the thriller from the suspense from the detective story.  I think that's true of movies, but not necessarily of books.  The novel is able to fly in more than one direction.  Is Christine a horror novel, or a love triangle?  Is The Stand horror, action or drama? 

Ken Follett, the master of the thriller, "A thriller is very simply a novel about people in danger. In the best thrillers the principle characters are in danger from chapter one." 

So what King books might classify as a thriller?  Well, not a lot, but here's a few. . .
1. Apt Pupil
2. The Dead Zone
3. The Running Man
4. The Drawing Of The Three starts out like a thriller
5. Cujo

What stories belong in the Thriller catagory?