Social thriller

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Social horror
)

A social thriller is a film genre using elements of suspense and horror to augment instances of apparent oppression in society. The genre gained attention by audiences and critics around the late 2010s with the releases of Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us,[1][2] each film highlighting occurrences of racial alienation (the former which veil a plot to abduct young African-Americans). Before Peele, other film actors, directors, and critics had used the term to describe an emerging genre of cinema with examples from all over the globe.

Many social thrillers focus on issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, or nationhood, often within the format of genre films more broadly categorized as a black comedy, film noir, psychological drama, and horror cinema, among others.

Early usage

March on Washington, alongside Harry Belafonte and Charlton Heston

"Social thriller" first appeared in

suspense format often akin to that of Hitchcock to comment on the deviousness and duplicity of French society."[3]

Many other film critics bandied about the term in their reviews prior to the 2010s but seldom in a way that gave the social thriller its own status as a codified genre in cinema. Prior to 2017, most writers used the term only once, usually in a single review, and to characterize an individual film. In his biography on

U.S. House of Representatives.[11] Both Tracy and Poitier also appeared in 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a film that would later be identified as a key "non-thriller" example of the social thriller genre.[12]

For films produced outside the U.S., more than one reviewer has named the 1961 British film

homosexual" in its dialogue, Victim raised controversy in the United Kingdom for its critique of Britain's anti-gay laws that would remain in place until the passing of Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalized homosexuality for men in England and Wales.[13][14] Ismal Xavier called the 1962 Brazilian political train robbery film O Assalto ao Trem Pagador ("Assault on the Payroll Train") a social thriller.[15] Taiwanese director Bai Jingrui's 1982 film Offend the Law of God has been called "an exploitation social thriller"[16] and the 1996 Spanish film Taxi, about the rise of the racist right wing, has also been given the label.[17]

In his Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, author Peter Rollberg goes a bit further than the one-mention references of his peers. In describing the work of Russo-Belarusian director Aleksandr Faintsimmer, Rollberg writes, "Fainsimmer devoted himself to the traditionally underrepresented genre of the social thriller with blockbusters such as No Right to Fail (1974) and The Cafeteria on Piatnikskaia Street (1978)." Rollberg also names Leonid Filatov's 1982 film The Rooks and Vadim Derbenev's 1985 hit The Snake Catcher as landmarks of the genre in the Soviet Union.[18]

21st century western cinema

At the onset of the 2000s, critics and scholars continued to label a number of contemporary films as social thrillers. The authors of Sociology: An Introductory Textbook and Reader wrote of the 2002 British film Dirty Pretty Things as being "not a documentary but a social thriller which blends aspects of the global urban legends about child kidnapping for organs and prostitutes drugging unsuspecting barflies who wake up in a hotel bathtub minus a kidney."[19] The New Yorker echoed this sentiment, saying, "Dirty Pretty Things is not a violent thriller. It might be called a social thriller—a creepy, tightly knit suspense film that, on the fly, reveals more about the lives of immigrants in London than the most scrupulously earnest documentary."[20] Other films labeled as social thrillers from the first decade-and-a-half of the new millennium include 2005's British production of The Constant Gardener[21] and the 2008 Italian film

Wall Street Journal called 2010's The Social Network "Part morality play, part social thriller,"[23] the 2012 Canadian child abduction film The Tall Man got called a social thriller for its DVD release,[24] and the French film festival hit Corporate was called a social thriller in 2016, several months in advance of its 2017 release.[25][26]

Modern Indian cinema

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan speaking in April 2006

Like the West, Indian cinema has a longstanding tradition of identifying some movies as "

Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, who named the film a social thriller.[30] Bachchan said of Pink that, "the context and the premise of the film shall always be of prime interest," but that "much is not spelt out because of the nature of the story and, of course, the nature of its genre—a social thriller!”[31]

Before Pink the term social thriller was applied occasionally by Bollywood's directors and marketers and then repeated by the press to describe selected movies, such as 2014's film

pedophiles."[37] Tamil director Bramma G. called his 2014 debut film, Kutram Kaditha, a social thriller.[38][39] The same year Jean Marcose called his Malayalam film Angels a social thriller.[40] Film Beat's Akhila Menon used the term to describe both Puthiya Niyamam[41] and Evidam Swargamanu in 2015.[42] Other Tamil social thrillers include 2016's Kabali,[43] and Aagam, of which director Vijay Anand Sriram claimed, "has a message but it will not be preachy. It's a social thriller with commercial elements in it".[44]

Post-Pink social thrillers in Indian cinema have included Adanga Maru,

Mulq,[47][48] Pinu,[49] Parari,[50] Blue Whale,[51] and Marainthirunthu,[52]
all released in 2018.

Get Out and after

Director and comedian Jordan Peele performing in 2012

Broadly categorized as a horror film,[53] director Jordan Peele stated that his directorial debut, Get Out, was part of a lineage of social thrillers, meaning that whatever scary things manifest onscreen, society is actually the true evil.[54] In a February 2017 interview, Peele told the Chicago Tribune, "I define 'social thriller' as thriller/horror movies where the ultimate villain is society."[55] In March he told the

New York Magazine, "I was trying to figure out what genre this movie was, and horror didn't quite do it. Psychological thriller didn't do it, and so I thought, Social thriller. The bad guy is society—these things that are innate in all of us, and provide good things, but ultimately prove that humans are always going to be barbaric, to an extent. I think I coined the term social thriller, but I definitely didn’t invent it."[56]

To coincide with the release of Get Out, Peele curated a film series for the

Village Voice, "It's not an actual thriller, it's just a great exploration of the social phenomenon of how we deal with race, putting it in a package that everyone can understand. Anybody can relate to the fear of meeting your potential in-laws for the first time... At a certain point with Get Out, I realized that I was making a sort of thriller take on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."[12]

After Get Out's success, Peele announced that he had plans to make four more social thrillers in the next decade. In an interview with Business Insider he said, "The best and scariest monsters in the world are human beings and what we are capable of especially when we get together. I've been working on these premises about these different social demons, these innately human monsters that are woven into the fabric of how we think and how we interact, and each one of my movies is going to be about a different one of these social demons."[61] By the time Peel's second film, Us, was under production, it had veered away from its original inceptions as a "social" thriller and fell more squarely into the horror genre. Whereas Peele's treatment of Get Out's black protagonist and white antagonists made it a film about race, he strove to make Us not be about race. “It’s important to me that we can tell black stories without it being about race,” Peele told Rolling Stone in early 2019. “I realized I had never seen a horror movie of this kind, where there’s an African-American family at the center that just is. After you get over the initial realization that you’re watching a black family in a horror film, you’re just watching a movie. You’re just watching people. I feel like it proves a very valid and different point than Get Out, which is, not everything is about race. Get Out proved the point that everything is about race. I’ve proved both points!”[62]

By mid-2017 the press had started touting upcoming films as belonging to the genre, including international Cannes Film Festival favorites like Colombia's Matar a Jesús,[63] France's L'Atelier;[64] Brazil's Rifle,[65] and the remake of Argentina's La Patota.[66] Variety wrote that animated film Tales of the Hedgehog was both "a children’s thriller" and "a social thriller-fable" after director Alain Gagnol described it as a “suspenseful social fable.”[67] From Hollywood, the social media scandal movie Assassination Nation,[68] and Greg McLean and James Gunn's The Belko Experiment,[69] were promised as social thrillers, as was Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit as part of the social thriller canon.[70]

Musician/author

Palme d’Or" and that third-place jury prizes were also awarded to "two socially conscious thrillers: The French director Ladj Ly’s feature-film debut Les Miserables and Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Bacurau."[77] With Get Out helping to codify the genre, critics have continued to apply the term retrospectively, with more than one review adding the 1975 science fiction thriller The Stepford Wives to the canon.[60][62]

Critique

Use of social thriller as a genre term has come under scrutiny since its widened use. One critique is that niche genres such as horror are re-labeled to draw a more mainstream fanbase. In a news piece about 2017's most successful horror films, journalist Haleigh Foutch wrote that "Get Out is being billed as a 'social thriller' now that the film has dominated at the box office and conjured early awards buzz."

AIDS epidemic, and that many horror films bear social significance without relying on the social thriller label.[80]

In other media

Literature

Social thriller author Ruth Rendell

Outside the medium of cinema, literary critics have used the term "social thriller" as early as the first decade of the 2000s. Writing on the psychological crime novels of Ruth Rendell in 2002, Lidia Kyzlinková at Masaryk University remarked, "Rendell may be seen as having developed a kind of social thriller, in which various representations around region, class, race, gender, or age form an important part of the plot."[81] Three years later Kyzlinková subtitled another chapter on Rendell, "Social Thriller, Ethnicity and Englishness," in which she characterized works whose plots focus less on detectives or police as being "socio-psychological, or social thrillers."[82]

Also writing in 2002,

Six Suspects, Vikas Swarup's 2010 follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire as "a richly textured social thriller."[84]

After its proliferation as a cinematic genre, the term was used to describe DC/Vertigo comic book Safe Sex.[85]

Theatre and television

As film writers began applying the term with greater frequency after its 2017 upsurge, theatre critics followed suit.

Broadway show Junk "melds a breadth of genres—crime story, tragedy, issue play, cautionary tale—into a fast-moving, broad-ranging social thriller."[86] By 2018 the term had leapt to television, and was used to describe the Netflix series What/If[87] and indian series Criminal Justice.[88]

Radio and podcasting

In September 2018 The New York Times highlighted a number of fiction

Panoply Media's airline disaster whodunit Passenger List as being among the social thrillers cropping up in the new wave of serialized audio fiction.[89]

List of selected social thriller films

List of directors associated with social thrillers

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 10 Best Social Thriller Films of All Time - MovieWeb
  2. ^ 10 Of The Greatest Horror Filmmakers Of All Time (According to Rotten Tomatoes) - Game Rant
  3. ^ .
  4. ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Monster". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
  5. .
  6. ^ .
  7. ^ .
  8. ^ .
  9. ^ .
  10. ^ .
  11. ^ Thompson, Bennie G. (February 26 – March 10, 2004). "Etension of Remarks: A Tribute to Ms. Beulah "Beah" Richards". Congressional Record. 150 (3). Government Printing Office: 2872.
  12. ^ a b Ebiri, Bilge (February 14, 2017). "Get Out's Jordan Peele Brings the 'Social Thriller' to BAM | Village Voice". Village Voice. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
  13. ^ .
  14. ^ Rose, Steve (17 July 2017). "Dirk Bogarde: why 'the idol of the Odeons' risked everything for art". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  15. .
  16. .
  17. ^ .
  18. ^ .
  19. .
  20. ^ a b Denby, David (September 15, 2003). "Heartbreak Hotels". The New Yorker. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
  21. ^ .
  22. .
  23. ^ Murray, Fiona (25 February 2011). "Armie Hammer: The Breakout". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
  24. ^ Hunter, Rob (14 August 2017). "In Defense of Pascal Laugier's 'The Tall Man'". Film School Rejects. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
  25. ^ Goodfellow, Melanie (May 9, 2016). "Cannes: Indie Sales adds social thriller 'Corporate' to slate". een Daily. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  26. ^ Guihéneuf, Philippe (3 April 2017). ""Corporate", thriller social utile de Nicolas Silhol". Le Huffington Post (in French). Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  27. .
  28. .
  29. .
  30. ^ Groves, Don (September 14, 2016). "Amitabh Bachchan Thriller Set To Clash With Horror Movie Starring Emraan Hashmi". Forbes. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  31. ^ IANS (11 September 2016). "Pink is a social thriller: Amitabh Bachchan". The Indian Express. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  32. ^ PTI (November 21, 2013). "Sana Saeed does an item song for Akshay Kumar's film – Indian Express". Indian Express. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  33. ^ Paul, Amrita (4 June 2014). "Meet the Fuglies: A social thriller with a message". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  34. ^ India Times (April 7, 2014). "First Look: Akshay Kumar's Film Fugly (ft Vijender Singh)". India Times. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  35. ^ "Kal Penn, Raajpal Yadav and Manoj Joshi bring Bhopal to Mumbai Film Festival". Bollyspice. October 22, 2014.
  36. ^ IMDb. "Laal Rang (2016) - IMDb". Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  37. ^ Dhananjayan, G. (2014). Pride of Tamil Cinema: 1931 to 2013: Tamil Films that have earned National and International Recognition. Blue Ocean Publishers. p. 492.
  38. ^ "Kutram Kadithal is meant for the masses as well: Bramma". Deccan Chronicle. 15 September 2015. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  39. ^ Nath, Parshathy J (November 6, 2014). "A reel dream come true". The Hindu. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  40. ^ "Jean Markose talks about making his directorial debut". Khaleej Times. July 10, 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  41. ^ Menon, Akhila (30 November 2015). "Malayalam Cinema: Christmas Releases 2015". Filmi Beat.com. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  42. ^ Menon, Akhila (12 May 2015). "Mohanlal's 10 Underrated Movies". Filmi Beat. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  43. ^ Upadhyaya, Prakash (July 28, 2016). "Rajinikanth's 'Kabali' poster takes inspiration from Irrfan Khan's 'Madaari'?". International Business Times, India Edition. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  44. ^ Subhakeerthana, S; Subramanian, Anupama (31 January 2016). "Not touched the darker side of politics in 'Aagam': Vijay Anand Sriram". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  45. ^ Cinema Express Features (May 21, 2018). "It's almost a wrap for Adanga Maru". Cinema Express. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  46. ^ "Screening of Kaagaz Ki Kashti… Biopic on Jagjit Singh by Brahmanand S Siingh!". APN News. 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  47. ^ "Freeze frame: Taapsee Pannu, Emraan Hashmi, Jenna Dewan". The Telegraph. May 25, 2018. Archived from the original on May 24, 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  48. ^ "Mulk first look: Taapsee Pannu returns to the courtroom as a lawyer in Anubhav Sinha's film". FirstPost. May 21, 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  49. ^ "Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapur collaborate to co-produce social thriller 'Pihu'". Television Post. May 23, 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  50. ^ George, Nina C. (10 June 2018). "Metrolife: An ode to all mothers". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  51. ^ Prabhu, Mani (November 8, 2018). "Blue Whale: Actress Poorna turns ACP for social thriller". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  52. ^ Ramachandran, Mythily (August 14, 2018). "'Marainthirunthu' is a Tamil social thriller". Gulf News. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  53. ^ Bruni, Frank (18 March 2017). "The Horror of Smug Liberals". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  54. ^ a b Castillo, Monica (March 10, 2017). "Where to Stream the Movies That Influenced 'Get Out'". New York Times. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  55. ^ Phillips, Michael (February 24, 2017). "Jordan Peele's 'social thriller' launches a directorial career". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  56. ^ How Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' Got Made|Vulture
  57. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Jordan Peele: The Art of the Social Thriller". Brooklyn Academy of Music. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  58. ^ Alexander, Chris (9 January 2017). "Jordan Peele to Curate Horror Series at BAMcinematek". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  59. ^ Atkinson, Sophie (June 8, 2017). "'Get Out': Check Out This List of Movies Which Inspired it". Highsnobiety. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  60. ^ a b Ferri, Jessica (30 March 2017). "Stepford Whites: On Get Out and the Social Thriller". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  61. ^ Guerrasio, Guerrasio (February 17, 2017). "Jordan Peele plans to direct a whole series of horror movies about 'social demons'". Business Insider. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  62. ^ a b Hiatt, Brian (29 January 2019). "The All-American Nightmares of Jordan Peele". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  63. ^ Pablos, Emiliano De (21 May 2017). "Cannes: Latido Boards Colombian Social Thriller 'Killing Jesus'". Variety. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  64. ^ Mintzer, Jordan (May 22, 2017). "'The Workshop' ('L'Atelier'): Film Review | Cannes 2017". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  65. ^ Mintzer, Jordan (February 12, 2017). "'Rifle': Film Review | Berlin 2017". The Hollywood Reporter.
  66. ^ Betancourt, Manuel (June 2017). "Director Santiago Mitre On Fighting the Patriarchy by Remaking a 1960s Argentine Film". Remezcla. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  67. ^ Hopewell, John (9 June 2017). "Annecy: 'Cat in Paris' Directors Prepare 'The Tales of the Hedgehog' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  68. ^ Jao, Charline (April 19, 2017). "Social Thriller Assassination Nation Adds Anika Noni Rose to Their Amazing Cast". The Mary Sue. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  69. ^ a b Douglas, Edward (May 17, 2017). "The Belko Experiment Review: A Grim But Effective Social Thriller". LRM Online. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  70. ^ a b Bianco, Julia (August 2017). "The Dark Tower headed for $20 million opening weekend". Looper.com. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  71. ^ a b Pardee, Grant (20 July 2018). "Sorry to Bother You: why Boots Riley's surreal race allegory is this year's Get Out". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  72. ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (15 June 2018). "Sundance Vanguard Recipient Boots Riley Talks Social Timeliness Of 'Sorry To Bother You'". Deadline. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  73. ^ a b Fear, David (15 January 2018). "25 Movies We Can't Wait to See at Sundance 2018". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  74. ^ a b Yamato, Jen (January 28, 2019). "Sundance social thriller 'Luce' asks tough questions about race, expectations and privilege". Minnesota Post-Bulletin. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  75. ^ Rife, Katie (January 19, 2019). "One year after Get Out, another social thriller deserves Oscar love for its script". AV Film. AV Club. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  76. ^ Gelbart, Bryn (January 23, 2019). "12 films that don't deserve their 2019 Oscar nominations — sorry". Insider. Insider Inc. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  77. ^ a b c Associated Press (26 May 2019). "Cannes 2019: South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's social thriller Parasite wins Palme d'Or". Firstpost. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  78. ^ Foutch, Haleigh (20 July 2017). "The Highest Grossing Horror Movies of the 21st Century, Ranked". Collider. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  79. ^ Knight, Jacob (8 June 2018). "There's No Such Thing as an "Elevated Horror Movie" (And Yes, 'Hereditary' is a Horror Movie)". /Film.
  80. ^ Fraser, Emma (18 January 2019). "Jordan Peele's Us and the labeling of horror movies". SYFY WIRE. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  81. ^ Kyzlinková, Lidia (2002). "Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine : social thriller on The crocodile bird and Asta's book" (PDF). Brno Studies in English. 28: 137–146. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  82. ^ Kyzlinková, Lidia (2005). Drabék, Pavel; Chovanec, Jan (eds.). "Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine: Social Thriller, Ethnicity and Englishness" (PDF). Theory and Practice in English Studies: Proceedings from the Seventh Conference in English, American and Canadian Studies. 2. Brno: Masaryk University: 109–114. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  83. ^ "New Social Thriller, The Tree Museum, to Challenge the Ethics of State-Enforced Environmentalism". Business Wire. April 14, 2009. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  84. ^ "Six Suspects | Vikas Swarup | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  85. ^ Arrant, Chris (June 20, 2019). "DC/Vertigo's SAFE SEX Jumps to IMAGE COMICS". Newsarama. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  86. ^ Feldman, Adam (November 2, 2017). "Junk". Time Out New York. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  87. ^ Chitwood, Adam (17 August 2018). "Renée Zellweger to Lead "Social Thriller" Netflix Series 'What/If'". Collider. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  88. ^ Winters, Bryce J. (25 May 2019). "Criminal Justice is a Gripping Social Thriller with a Stunning Cast!". The News Crunch. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  89. ^ a b Hess, Amanda (13 September 2018). "The Best New Social Thriller Is a Podcast". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  90. ^ "Adventures in New America". Night Vale Presents. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  91. ^ a b c d Pasternack, Jesse (5 February 2018). "Beneath the Paving Stones, the Nightmares!: American Social Thrillers of the 1960s". Indiana University Cinema. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  92. ^ a b c d e f g h More Than A Jump Scare: 6 Haunting Social Thrillers|A.frame
  93. ^ Jordan Peele Reveals The Movies That Inspired Horror-Thriller 'Get Out' - The Inquistir
  94. ^ Parasite: Go in Blind, But Be Ready for a Wild Ride — Indiana University Cinema
  95. ^ Branigin, Anne (May 9, 2018). "This Is Us: Jordan Peele's New Social Thriller Boasts Killer Cast". The Grapevine. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  96. ^ ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Is Part Angry-Tweet Social Thriller, Part Harry Styles Thirst Valentine - Rolling Stone
  97. ^ Jordan Peele's Nope Is Coming Home This Halloween—But You Can Watch It First on the Cloud - Gizmodo
  98. ^ Dry, Jude (2 March 2017). "'Get Out' Is the First of Many 'Social Thrillers' Jordan Peele Has Planned". IndieWire.
  99. ^ Pond, Steve (3 January 2018). "'Get Out' Director Jordan Peele on Why He Changed That Ending". TheWrap. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  100. ^ Lee, Madison Ann (February 21, 2019). "Jordan Peele's reboot of "The Twilight Zone" paves the way for more social thriller films | The Wellesley News". The Wellesley News. Wellesley College. Retrieved 26 April 2020.