Differences between Horror films and Thriller films

Thriller films vs Horror films 

Differences in:

1. Narrative:

•  Horror films can have a mini-plot (multiple victims) or arch-plot, featuring a single protagonist. The Thriller typically has a single protagonist. 

2. Themes

Controlling ideas (themes) 

A story’s controlling idea (sometimes called the theme) is the lesson you want your reader to come away with. It’s the meaning they will assign to your story, usually unconsciously.

A prescriptive or positive story is about what we should do.

A cautionary or negative story is about what we shouldn’t do.

Horror 

•  Prescriptive: Life is preserved when the protagonist overpowers the monster/antagonist and becomes the  hero. 

•  Cautionary: Death or a "fate worse than death" results when the protagonist fails to overpower the monster and is succumbed to defeat. 

Thriller 

•  Prescriptive: Life is preserved when the protagonist unleashes their special gift/power

•  Cautionary: Death or damnation triumphs when the protagonist fails to unleash their special gift/power. 

https://storygrid.com/thriller-genre/

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Examples: 

Thriller

• In Marathon Man the protagonist’s special gift is running. He’s fast and he’s fit, and he uses that gift to escape the monster.
• In Hot Fuzz, the protagonist’s special gift is perfect adherence to the rules of policing, and he outwits the monstrous villain by being a really, really good cop.

Horror:

• The protagonists in Alien and Get Out both outwit their monsters with a little ingenuity, some luck, and sheer determination.

3. Values

The global values at stake describe the protagonist's primary (first) change from the beginning of the story to the end. 

Thrillers:

• Protagonist is pushed to their limits. Towards damnation, but not to the actual extent but rather it being expressed. 

Examples:

-

• In Alien, we quickly learn that death IS mercy to the infected crew member, and to each successive crew member attacked by the monster.
• In Marathon Man, the Jewish protagonist is trying to stop a Nazi war criminal and would face a kind of damnation if he fails.

Core Emotions:

The core emotion of a story is what a reader wants to feel without taking real-life risks. It’s the reason they choose a particular type of story.

Thrillers:

• Excitement -- it's purely all about the thrill and exhilarating experiences that come with it 

Horrors:

• Fear -- audience experience the thrill of courage against terror in a life and death situation.

Antagonists

The Horror antagonist is more powerful than the protagonist and could possibly be a supernatural entity, a monster - something unrealistic, whereas the Thriller antagonist is more powerful than the protagonist but is human. 

Even if the Horror antagonist is nominally a human being, that human is working for (or under the possession) of some monstrous force. 

Horrors:

• If the antagonist is a non-humane monster (or under the influence/possession of one), the genre is thereby Horror. 
• If the antagonist is a human being, the genre is Thriller

Conventions

In Horror, the antagonist commits a series of escalating crimes, whereas Thrillers may have only one..

Horror protagonists are unable to escape, due to their isolated location or current situation. The settings are claustrophobic, dark - all of which conceals danger via labyrinth-like effects (a complicated irregular network or passages or paths in which it's difficult to find one's way), hence the labyrinth effect, as these complicated passages cause for the escalating crimes.

In Thrillers, the landscape is broader to allow for the investigative process. The setting is dark, ominent and immediate threatening but allows for escape. 

Typically, horror stories are improbable, hence meaning that there's not much likeliness of it actually occurring in real life. The progressive complications and climatic action, especially notable in inciting incidents, are very unlikely to happen. 

The key difference with Thriller, is that the story is one in which the audience can picture happening in real life. An example of the plausible narrative is the mystery thriller, Annabelle. The movie narrative follows Annabelle, a cursed doll, and her hauntings to each person.  Annabelle, the doll, is already based off the real-life doll from The Warrens Museum. However, the events in which the doll causes for and incites in the movie is very much relatable to that of real life. It also relates to the idea that media changes our perspectives on how we view things - for example, Annabelle, a doll, based off of children's dolls. Through the cultivation of media, we now view these inanimate objects as something of a subject and something scary and eerie. 

Horror protagonists are trying to escape with their own life because the antagonist is on a serialised mission of absolute devastation. 

Thriller protagonists are trying to solve a puzzle (saving a victim) while avoiding death.

Story Structure

In Thrillers, the protagonist accepts the quest/pursuit at the beginning of the middle build. In Horror, by ignoring the warning that danger is lurking, the protagonist inadvertently accepts the quest in the beginning.

Both Horror and Thriller share a convention of ,"false endings", which is inevitably the false sense of security instilled into the audience, i.e. the idea that the threat/imminent danger is gone, until a final jumpscare takes on the last surviving character. 

At the very end of a Horror story, information is left out for the audience that ultimately proves or implies that evil still lurks, and will eventually return. This allows the audience to interpret the ending. 

Thriller endings have more finality, with justice definitely prevailing, or it may end up with the death of the protagonist or the victim. 

Notable false-ending: Spectre, 2015 

The false-ending follows when the audience believe Bond is going to kill the antagonist, but after a short conversed dialogue, Bond retreats and goes to his other half, all whilst the killer looks back on them - hence danger still lurks.