Sub Thriller Genre Analysis - 'The Resident' and 'Safe House'

Sub Genre Analysis

Psychological Thriller – ‘The Resident’

Set in modern day New York, Dr. Juliet Bliss Devereau works in a New York hospital and has recently ended her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and is looking for an apartment for herself. She finds an old apartment building owned by Max who she thinks to be sweet and handsome and one night she misinterprets his signals and dates him. However she decides that it is too soon to have a love affair and she asks Max to leave her apartment. However she does not know that Max is a deranged man obsessed with her and he spies her from secret openings throughout the building and her apartment. Later on in the film, Max begins to drug Juliet every night and starts to sexually abuse her. Juliet has then found it hard to wake up in the morning to go to the hospital and decides to install a monitoring system in her apartment and later learns the truth about Max. As it is a psychological thriller, the resident has stereotypical psychological generic conventions.

The protagonist has a stereotypical representation as they are vulnerable and the victim throughout until the end of the film. Juliet in this film The Resident is the protagonist because she has become vulnerable as she is unaware that she is being targeted, drugged and sexually abused.

The Antagonist however is usually the character in the film that has power and control over the Protagonist at any given moment in the film. For example, Max is the Antagonist as he drugs Juliet in her sleep and then sexually abuses her without any control on her part making vulnerable.

Action Thriller – ‘Safe House’

                A young CIA agent Matt Weston is ordered to look after a most wanted CIA rogue agent Tobin Frost in a safe house to be put into questioning. Whilst Frost is being interrogated, the safe house in then attacked and they both find themselves on the run to find another safe house away from gunmen who also want the fugitive.

                The protagonist has some shifts in representations in this case. In Safe House, the protagonist is Matt because, even though he is a CIA agent, he is barely experienced in this work and finds himself in helpless situations on attack of the gunmen.

                The antagonist in the beginning of this film is Tobin as he is being chased by the CIA as he is a rogue but so the audience later on find out there were reasons for Frost to become a fugitive from the CIA. Now because of this shift again in representation, the antagonist almost also becomes the protagonist along with Matt as they are both being attacked by gunmen from other groups and even from the CIA.

Comparison of Psychological and Action Thrillers

                Psychological Thrillers and Action Thrillers have similarities and differences. In Psychological Thrillers, there is conflict between the main characters and is mental and emotional rather than physical. The Resident is an example of a Psychological Thriller because of its suspense of the two main characters (one the antagonist, the other the protagonist) as the antagonist demolishes the mind of the protagonist to question her own mental state. The main theme of this particular psychological thriller is mind because the antagonist becomes obsessed with the protagonist and quite obviously makes him show to have a mental unstability.

                In Action Thrillers, there is a lot of guns and explosives and an obvious antogonist. An example of an Action Thriller would be Safe House. This is because the are huge amount of gun use and also because the motive of the storyline of Safe House is secrets due to the fact the protagonist is exposed to CIA secrets and questions the reasons in him staying. The exposure of these secrets are because of the once antagonist, but after they were unleashed the antagonist, from the audiences point of view, becomes the protagonist against the CIA.