by Cory Krantz

Created on: July 18, 2009

In the cinema there are multiple types of movies: Horror, Action, Romance, Suspense, Thriller, Mystery, Western, etc. But when you think about it, some genres are similar, like for instance, Mysteries, Thrillers, and Suspense movies are similar, but what are the differences? Well, before we can answer this question, we must first have an understanding of what each one is.

A mystery is a movie that revolves around an event (most commonly a murder), and the whole movie is about finding clues to piece the puzzle together. An example of a mystery is a play called "And Then There Was One". The play is about a party on an abandoned island given by a millionaire, but people start dying and the remaining people must figure out who's the killer among them. Another example is "Death by Murder", which is a movie about an overnight party given by a billionaire who wants to prove he's smarter than the world's top spies. He has booby trapped house and the person to survive the night and solve the murder of one of the people at the party will get one-hundred million dollars. These are just classic mysteries, there are other types, but we'll get into that later.

The ever famous thriller, however, is a combination of both the suspense and mystery genres in which the story usually revolves around a supernatural force or power and goes into finding out more about this force and how to over power it. Probably the most commonly known thriller is "The Skeleton Key" in which a girl had to learn to use hudo, like vudo, which is a type of dark magic, in order to save herself as well as an innocent man.

And last but not least is the suspense field, which made Stephen King so famous. The suspense movie is about discovering some unknown secret that changes the main character's life. The suspense has either a human killer or a supernatural force used as warnings to the main character. "The Uninvited" was about a girl that just got out of a mental institution to find her dad dating after his wife died. Supernatural occurrences from her dead mother and other spirits warn her that this new girlfriend is more than she seems: she is a killer. The movie revolves around the conflict that she was previously crazy and is going back to that crazy state, or is something really going to happen?

Now, sometimes movies will have multiple genres, like combinations. "The uninvited" for example is all three genres listed. It revolves around supernatural occurrences, is about a character trying to solve a problem by collecting clues, and in the end, reveals secrets that forever change the lives of the main character and her dad.

Learn more about this author, Cory Krantz.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.