Theme: Imprisonment Thrillers

This refers to thrillers where someone is held prisoner by a captor. The drama of the story centers around their attempts to escape from confinement, where suspense rides a rollercoaster around the building up of hopes and seeing them dashed.

There have been a number of films about people imprisoned by psychos, serial killers and backwoods hicks. A popular variant came during the Torture Porn fad where people were imprisoned in locked rooms and forced to participate in cruel and sadistic games.

Of more recent has been the Conceptual Containment Thriller, which seeks to confine a person or persons in as small a place as possible – a coffin, an elevator, a tree, a tent, a phone booth – for the duration of the show.

The topic is discussed in more depth in the essay Imprisonment Thrillers