Going off of the research I’ve conducted over the last few days, I’ve also come across the different types of mystery and thriller films and how easily other genres may overlap in doing so. Covering most to all of these types and blends will lead to us having a better understanding of what to do for our specific narrative following the struggles of a detective. I will also address movies that are categorized in these blends as well.
Types of Mystery Films
Standard Private Eye
The standard private eye type of mystery film mostly follows the plot line of a detective film, but with a more official approach to it. More psychology is involved in these types of films, so more psychological attacks rather than physical and more mental mind games rather than the typical mystery here and there. (Libguides, 1) The “Private Eye” part comes in as an actual private eye instead of being named a detective. These films typically overlap with the crime genre, which is what Sitara is covering in her research. A great example of this is Zero Effect, directed by Jake Kasdan. While this film also has elements of comedy in it, the narrative of a “Private Eye” mystery film is kept throughout the film through its main characters being Daryl Zero and Steve Arlo. They’re both the “private eye” in this instance and they deal with blackmailing and complex crimes throughout the film and different mind games the villain is playing on them. The plot of this film is that they are two of the best detectives in the world who have to Our film isn’t typically following this sort of story formula, so while it’s good to differentiate between the types of movies, this type is not too useful to us right now.
Cozy Mysteries
Cozy mysteries are typically movies that don’t involve a lot of violence or action in many ways, but in just a simple small, closed off town and can be solved through simple intuition and problem solving. Police and CSI procedures are typically left out of these sort of films. These types of films can easily overlap with classic detective films. (Libguides, 1) A good example of this sort of film is Murder At the Gallop, directed by George Polluck. Miss Marple figures out the murder with her skills as a detective and being able to deduce who would’ve done something like that easily. Not a whole lot of violence is seen throughout the film as Miss Marple would probably be easily hurt from said violence. This film will also be useful for the representation of women is mystery films, as our main character is meant to be female and could add to the struggles of that detective. This genre and the next genre I’m going over is sure to be a good idea of what we want our film to end up like.
Classic Detective
Classic detectives movies are exactly what they sound like: a classic detective investigating a mysterious murder with a close-knit circle of suspects that all have a well developed motive to kill the victim. The difference between this and the Cozy mystery is that there could involve violence or different mind games to go with the detective’s investigation. Though, they are still very easily overlappabe in creating a mystery film. A movie that follows this formula nearly perfectly is Murder On the Orient Express, directed by Kenneth Branagh. The main character, Hercule Poirot, is stuck on a train and left to investigate the murder of Cassetti that occurred on that train with a pool of suspects who all had a connection to the victim. This is truly the type of mystery title sequence we want to go for in our project. Other obvious examples would be Sherlock Holmes and Ace Adventura.
In order to truly find out what kind of conventions and narrative structure I would need to follow for this specific detective movie, Sitara and I analyzed a scene from the movie in order to do this. Compiling all the information we gathered, we put it all into one video, which can be seen from here.
The full video, blocked by Fox on YouTube so I’m unable to have it embedded, can be seen here through Google Drive.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jXvGDJCg1up5FoPHl9prD2JaUOwJoj_7/view?usp=sharing
Police Procedural
This subgenre of mystery is a little different from the typical formulas mentioned earlier. The detective takes on the role of the police officer. (Libguides, 1) A familiar narrative in this genre would be the idea that the police are not doing enough to solve the crime, so the detective will take things into their own hands in order to solve the crime once and for all. Another things that makes this genre more different is the amount of mistakes the detectives could make which allowed room for error and development of their character as well. A prime example of this genre is M, directed by Fritz Lang. Following the outline that I stated, the plot of this movie follows the true police being unable to catch a child-murderer, but instead of “detectives” finding the criminal, other criminals join in to find out who’s committing the crime. It’s different than a typical police procedural film, but the conventions follow that sort of mystery very well.
Thrillers
Since thrillers are not a genre we are really focused on, I only researched the relevant topic of thriller mysteries rather than many different types of thrillers. Thriller mysteries are narratives with the idea of a corrupt social construct, perception of mystery, and more psychological ideas of solving mysteries, so a lot more deduction and logical flow of solving the murder/crime is invovled. (Libguides, 1) A movie that follows this narrative structure is A Simple Favor, directed by Paul Feig. A Simple Favor follows the narrative of one of the main characters, Emily, disappearing and the “detective figure”, Stephanie, to figure out where she is. Though, it’s considered a thriller of sorts because of the tricks and mind games and obstacles that Emily put in place for her. Having these sort of narrative strategies in the back of our minds, it may be able to spice up our title sequence that much more.
Concluding my research, this has really helped my narrow down my options to the sort of plot I want to establish for our title sequence, so our original skeleton is definitely bound to change.
Sources
https://libguides.enc.edu/mysteryfiction/genres
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_film
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-structure-your-mystery-thriller-or-suspense-novels
FILM GENRE AND ITS VICISSITUDES: THE CASE OF THE PSYCHOTHRILLER 1 Virginia Luzon Aguado
I cited multiple movies and a YouTube video where they were mentioned.
Into The Truth 