How Thriller Openings Create Suspense

 As we start seriously considering ideas for our opening, I've been thinking about how thriller openings create suspense. Why some grip you and others don't. As I've mentioned before, thrillers thrive on tension, mystery, and unease. The best openings establish all three right away and I've noticed three approaches to this:

Throwing You Straight Into Tension (In Media Res)

Starting in media res means "in the middle of things", it's dropping the audience into the action without setup. It forces them to catch up and engages them immediately and it's extremely common in all types of narrative media, not just film.

But on the topic of in media res in film openings, Drive (2011) gives us a good example. It opens right on the action, the driver navigating a getaway. He doesn’t speak. You can hear a police scanner, and the tension builds as he times his movements perfectly. We don’t know the full situation, but we know it’s high stakes. The audience becomes hyper aware and scans everything going on for clues, they're active participants rather than passive consumers.

Making You Ask The Right Questions (Unanswered Qs)

Sometimes, the approach isn't about action, it's about creating unanswered questions in the viewer's mind. In "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011), part of the opening shows a man receiving a framed flower. He stares at it with emotion. There's no explanation but it's clear it means something. The audience is left with unanswered questions about what it means.

Letting The Audience Know Less Than the Characters (Restricted Info)

This is similar to unanswered questions, but the difference is we know less about what is actually going on. One example of this is in "Prisoners" (2013), Keller Dover enters an RV and searches it. We can tell he works for the police, but we don't know what type of criminal he's dealing with. As he searches, the camera focuses on his reactions, but we don't see everything right away. He sees something disturbing but the film doesn't immediately reveal what it is.

For our film opening, we need to decide what kind of approach to take: drop the audience straight in like in media res or create the feeling something is off or create a big question. Perhaps we can integrate multiple aspect of each of these 3 approaches. 

Until next time.