History of the thriller genre

What was the first thriller film? This terrible suspense may have first appeared on screens with a film by  Lumière brothers in 1895 with a appropriately named title 'A train appears on screen'. This was simply a train would rush towards the audience, on the screen, but some people did flee the their seats in terror.





Nosferatu

  After that title such as 'Rescued by Rover' a film where a dog discovers the where abouts of a missing child, then the chilling story of Nosferatu where he creeps into the heriones bed chamber. After that a young british director took it upon himself 'to give the public good healthy mental shake ups' giving the audience the first major british talkie 'black mail' where he the recurrence of the word 'knife' in the mouth of a gossipy neighbour presses on the heroine's guilty conscience like an exposed nerve. This director was called Alfred Hitchcock. He set the mark of how future britsih films were too be judged in the future,they also set some important ground rules. In the thriller, whodunit is not that important, and unlike the gangster or the crime film, the leading protagonist can be an innocent bystander who gets caught up in the adventure, like Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) in The 39 Steps. In this way, an audience is gripped because the hero is an Everyman figure grappling with unexpected danger not too far removed from possibility.