Thrillers - Audience Expections

When you think of thrillers, you would expect certain aspects to be portrayed within the film, i.e you would not expect to find really romantic, girly scenes as this would be labelled a "chick flick" and you would next expect aliens and UFO's as this would be labelled as a "science fiction" film. 

So, what makes up a thriller? What are the audience expectations of a thriller? 

I did some research on this topic using the internet, and from this research i found a list of things that the audience would expect to see in a thriller:

• Shadows
• Dark rooms/areas
• Night time scenes
• Light bulbs 
• Tense music
• A bad guy/A hero
• A deeper meaning to the plot
• Confusion
• Death = murder or accident
• Guns, Knives, Sharp objects
• Adrenalin/Thrills
• Twists within the story
• Sound effects/Visual effects
• Gripping parts
• A build up to an unexpected scene/plot

There are two main things that make up a thriller overall. These are suspense and mystery. Without these key components, the film would not be a thriller.