Sound In Thrillers

Sounds are used in thrillers to create a certain atmosphere for the audience, so they know what type of emotion to be feeling as each stage. A thriller film can control how the audience react with what type of sound or music they decide to use. Some sounds are used to build tension, others to build a sound bridge, some are even used to emphasis the reaction the audience has to the actions of a character.
The most common type of sound associated with thrillers are dark eerie pieces of music which build suspense, they tend to start slowly and then gradually grow. Such as this scene from Inception, which begins with slow music and on-edge tones and then the pace quickens the action becomes more intense. Also in this scene there is the use of non-diegetic sounds, such as the rain and gun shots, these are non-diegtic so the sound is emphasised so the audience takes more notice of them.

In this scene from The Departed there is no music or sound scape playing. The focus is on to what the two men say. Here the dialogue is more important. The scene also uses non-diegetic sound to emphasis the noise that the elevator is making and the gun shots. This scene isn't as suspenseful as the inception clip but shows how thrillers can use dialogue to be suspenseful and how they can have a dramatic twist.

Here the film The Dark Knight uses a range of sounds to build suspense. There's the music of strong deep notes that links to the actions and follows the pace of the action, the use of non-diegetic sounds such as gun fire, punching and batmans cape to emphasis these actions, and the use of dialogue to inform the audience of what's at stake, as we learn that the hostages have been mixed up and that Gorden's family are in trouble.