I've watched quite a few thrillers sent from all over the world, at a film festival last year, and here's the problem with a lot of them. The steaks just simply aren't high enough. Most of the filmmakers do scripts that are about simple things, such as say... a married person is having an affair and the other lover turns out to be a psycho. Well plots like that aren't exactly groundbreaking, unless you can put the twist of the century on top of it, which they did not. Or a ghost is haunting a house with stock teenage characters, that aren't developed very originally, or compellingly. The stories just are too small to think of it simply.
It seems to me that in order for these movies from beginners to be remembered by major audiences, that the steaks just need to be set higher. Think of it as a newstory. If the plot of the movie is not big enough to be on the front page of pretty much all the nation's major newspapers for at least two weeks running, than it's probably not big enough to make for a compelling, grounbreaking thriller, that will mesmorize audiences.
I mean if you look at Fail-Safe (1964), you're on the right track. It's a low budget thriller, where most of the suspense and revealings of the plot is done simply by talking and phone conversations. So is a good idea for us to make our thrillers more compelling or do I just don't know what I'm talking about?
It seems to me that in order for these movies from beginners to be remembered by major audiences, that the steaks just need to be set higher. Think of it as a newstory. If the plot of the movie is not big enough to be on the front page of pretty much all the nation's major newspapers for at least two weeks running, than it's probably not big enough to make for a compelling, grounbreaking thriller, that will mesmorize audiences.
I mean if you look at Fail-Safe (1964), you're on the right track. It's a low budget thriller, where most of the suspense and revealings of the plot is done simply by talking and phone conversations. So is a good idea for us to make our thrillers more compelling or do I just don't know what I'm talking about?
It's stakes.
