Published: October 28, 2024 | Last Updated: October 31, 2024
Suspense is a literary or cinematic device that creates tension and uncertainty, keeping the audience anxious and eager to know what will happen next. Think of it as going up the hill on a roller coaster – the taller the hill, the bigger the build-up of the expected thrill of the big drop. While often associated with thrillers, suspense transcends genres, appearing in everything from comedies to horror films.
In this article, I’ll explain how suspense can be triggered emotionally, how suspense is different from related genres such as horror and mystery, elements that trigger suspense in films, and analyze a few suspenseful examples from movies.
Fear + Anxiety = Suspense
In his essay, The Paradox of Suspense (2001), art philosopher Nöel Carroll refers to suspense as “[…] a fear emotion coupled with the cognitive state of uncertainty.” In other words, suspense is fear coupled with anxiety. It’s an effective mood for a director to trigger, and it can be felt repeatedly, even though we’ve watched a movie many times.
What is Fear?
Fear is an instinctual response to a particular event or object perceived as a threat. For example, your main characters are hiking in the mountains and suddenly stumble upon a bear; fear is the natural response.
A good example is the terrifying attack of the grizzly bear in The Revenant (2015):
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is an internalized psychological response through subdued but steady tension to an unspecific event or object. For example, your protagonist lies awake at night worrying about the uncertainty of the future—is everything going to be alright?
A good example of anxiety creation in film is the movie Whiplash (2014). First, watch the scene below:
In this scene, the psychopathic and abusive band leader Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) appears to show a grain of human emotions when he breaks the news that one of his former band members – Shawn Casey – died in a car accident. The truth is much darker, though, as Shawn killed himself because of Fletcher’s abusive drill sergeant teaching style; although Fletcher shows no guilt, he describes Shawn as weak, “he barely squeaked in to begin with.”
Notice how Fletcher compares Shawn to the current band members: “He’d started at Shaffer with a lot of hope, like all you guys,” creating anxiety. The clip foreshadows the car accident Andrew Neiman later gets into. It also suggests Nieman might share a fate similar to Shawn’s. He might have found success, but at what cost? He’s isolated from everyone he loves and is still under Fletcher’s influence.
Fear feeds off Anxiety (and vice-versa), creating suspension
A heightened state of anxiety can trigger an elevated fear response. Vice-versa, a fear response (fx a jump scare) can trigger an elevated anxious state of what dangers might appear in the future – “Are the characters gonna make it?”
Suspense is characterized by prolonged anticipation and driven by timing. Devices like countdowns, clocks, or slowly tracking shots can be used to create suspense over potential threats. Watch how Ridley Scott creates a compelling, suspenseful scene in the clip below by combining uncertainty with expected and sudden, unexpected threats.
In this scene from Alien (1979), Ridley Scott creates anxiety by using the diegetic sounds of the countdown clock to the ship’s self-destruct sequence and a stressful alarm sound combined with flashing lights, a limited field of view, and a claustrophobic setting. He also creates fear with quick glimpses of the alien, an unexpected steam pipe leak jump scare, and close-ups of Sigourney Weaver’s great (sweaty) acting.
How to Apply Fear and Anxiety to Create Suspense.
To create suspense, you must control the information flow, i.e., what is known to the audience and what is known to the characters on screen. Suspense typically provides audiences with an objective viewpoint and often more information than the characters themselves – a technique known as dramatic irony.
No one explains this better than the master of suspense himself: Alfred Hitchcock. Have a look at this excellent video essay on how Hitchcock uses shock (fear) and suspense by controlling information:
Creating effective suspense requires four essential elements:
The Stability-Instability Dynamic
Suspense cannot emerge from nothing. It requires establishing a baseline of stability before introducing disrupting elements. A good example is the opening sequence from Jaws:
The title sequence is underwater footage. This could be a peaceful diving sequence were it not from the famous non-diegetic film score by John Williams. Is it the shark’s point-of-view we see?
Then, we cut to the stability baseline: a beach party with some teens drinking, smoking, jamming, and making out. But because of the title sequence music, we are left with an anxious feeling that everything is not fun and games – at least not for long.
Then, the instability (the shark) is introduced. As the classic horror trope prescribes, a guy and a promiscuous young woman decide to go skinny dipping in the moonlit ocean. The orchestral music is introduced again, and we see underwater footage of the naked woman and understand that she is about to get attacked.
Craft Uncertainty
Without uncertainty, suspense cannot exist. The audience must believe multiple outcomes are possible. Creating uncertainty makes the audience question what will happen, which is what you want.
One of the best examples of this is Orson Welles’ brilliant opening scene from Touch of Evil (1958):
We start in medias res with someone setting the timer on a bomb to approximately 3 minutes and placing it in the trunk of a couple’s car. Then, an approximately 3-minute harrowing, suspenseful one-shot scene of the couple’s journey through busy streets follows. The car is stopped several times by policemen doing traffic control, and each pause seems like an eternity.
The sequence keeps us on the edge of our seats: will the bomb go off? If so, when? How many people will get killed? Who is the couple? Who is the guy who planted the bomb, and why? Who are the other people we meet? Will the couple survive? And why are there goats in the street?
Establish Clear Stakes
For suspense to grip an audience, they must understand and care about what’s at risk.
The opening scene of the TV show Fallout (2024) is one of the best examples of this. We immediately establish a baseline: we’re at a children’s birthday party. Subtle clues from the TV set, combined with the Nat King Cole song “Orange Colored Sky,” with the lyrics “Flash, bam, alakazam, and goodbye,” hint that something has gone awry between the USA and China, introducing instability.
We quickly care about the washed-out actor, children’s party entertainer Cooper Howard (Walter Goggins), and his daughter, Janey (Teagan Meredith). Janey works with her dad and is not invited like the other kids. Cooper is a caring dad, doing this for his daughter (who’s very proud) of a failed marriage, although some of the asshole dads of the party are quick to judge that it’s because of alimony and label him as a communist.
In other words, when the nukes drop on Los Angeles, the stakes are clear: we want Cooper and Janey to survive.
Deliver the Payoff
The resolution of suspense, positive or negative for the characters, must match the buildup’s intensity. Think of it as a rollercoaster: the more you go uphill, the bigger the build-up of anticipation of the big drop.
Have a look at this example from Aliens 2 (1986):
Notice how Ridley Scott builds suspense using the diegetic sound of the scanner and the character’s stressed dialogue. And boy, does he deliver on the pay-off as we see the ceiling is crawling with Xenomorphs.
Summing Up
Suspense is one of cinema’s most powerful tools for keeping audiences engaged. It creates a unique state of uncertainty and excitement about specific outcomes. While often associated with thrillers, suspense transcends genres, appearing in everything from comedies to horror films.
Below is a table which compares and sums up the differences between anxiety, fear, and suspension
Concept | Definition | Visual Elements Examples | Sound Element Examples |
---|---|---|---|
Anxiety | Anxiety is a psychological response to an unspecific event or object. | – Tight close-ups of the character’s face or hands, showing fidgeting or sweating – Muted color palettes that evoke isolation and vulnerability | – Low, pulsing sounds or droning ambient noise – Gradually increasing tempo to enhance tension and unease |
Fear | Fear is an instinctual response to an immediate event or object. | – Quick cutaways to the source of threat – Dim or shadowy lighting that obscures parts of the scene, enhancing unpredictability | – Sudden, high-pitched sound effects like screeching – Silence followed by abrupt loud noises to create jumpscares |
Suspense | A tension-filled anticipation where the outcome is known but not immediate. Suspense is prolonged and linked to the unknown timing or nature of an event, making the viewer await what may happen next. | – Long tracking shots or still frames that hold on key elements – Visual clues like clocks or countdowns heightening anticipation | – Rhythmic ticking or repetitive sounds that mimic countdowns – Gradual crescendo in orchestral music |
These elements work together to create that distinct feeling of anxious anticipation that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats. The most effective suspense sequences often use dramatic irony, where the audience possesses crucial information that the characters lack. This knowledge gap creates a unique tension as viewers watch characters navigate dangers they don’t fully understand.
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