Romantic thriller
genre that involves romance and thriller
A romantic thriller is a narrative that combines elements of both the romance and thriller genres. The goal of romantic thrillers is to entertain audiences by evoking discomfort through moments of suspense along with heightened feelings of anxiety and fear. While the concept of a thriller is more widely recognized, it often transcends the boundaries of a single genre.
Thrillers can range from comedy and melodrama to adventure and romance, with all thrillers inherently blending different genres. The suspense that defines thrillers tends to pair more effectively with certain genres such as crime, sci-fi and romance, which allow for greater suspense than genres like screwball comedies or musicals.
A romantic thriller merges the romance and thriller genres, setting it apart from established cinema movements such as Gothic horror or Golden Age detective films. The genre operates on two levels: a specific theme is established, and general relationships, patterns and structural elements are woven into this theme. This framework allows for a wide variety of visual styles and story structures within the romantic thriller genre.
History
In Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism (1957), he suggested four archetypal categories in literature: comedy, romance, tragedy, and irony or satire. In a romance, the protagonist is portrayed as only slightly superior to others, capable of remarkable actions in a world where the "ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended."
A key element in a romantic plot is adventure, often involving a quest where the hero faces challenges or monsters.
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This entry incorporates text from “Romantic thriller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.