Romantic thriller

Romantic thriller or a Romance thriller is a narrative that involves romance and thriller. Etymology of the word thrill comes from English root meaning “to pierce”. A thrill is a sharp sensation.

A good thriller provides entertainment by making viewers uncomfortable with moments of suspense, the heightened feeling of anxiety and fright. It makes persons sit on the edge of their seats. A thriller is more a familiar concept and description than a pure genre. It is not a genre with a precise definition. It canasic thriller trait of suspense, fits with some genres better than with others. For example, crime, sci-fi and romance allow more scope for suspense than screwball comedies or musicals do.

Romantic thriller in discussion of genres, is more a metagenre that merges two or more genres together. It is different from established and historically specific cinema movements like Gothic horror or Golden Age detective. (thrillers pp. 260 261) A genre works on two levels. First a specific theme exists. Then general relationships, patterns and structural elements are interwoven to the specific theme. This is why there can be a large variety of visual styles and story structures in romantic thriller.

Notrthrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism (1957) suggested four archetypal categories in literature; comedy, romance, tragedy and irony or satire. In a romance the hero is like us, only slightly superior to others and can behave in remarkable ways, in a world where ‘ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended'.

The common element in a romantic plot is adventure. There is an adventure or quest where the hero faces ordeals or monsters. There is often a sense of two worlds, the mundane reality and the unknown mysterious. The concept of a maze is seen in romantic thrillers, where the exit or solution is not easily navigated. It’s similar to a metaphor for a journey with blind spots and false turns where some things are hidden.

...
Wikipedia