Thriller Characters

In a thriller story, the two main focuses of character archetypes are protagonists, victims and antagonists. There isn't a main person or stereotype to base these archetypes on, which drives forward the fact that anyone could be a protagonist, a victim or an antagonist of a thriller situation. 
That being said, most thriller films to date hold men as being the protagonists and antagonists, and the females are seen as the victims.

In addition, the female role is:

• the stereotypical victim of the story
• Young and vulnerable
• having opposing characteristics of the antagonist
• needing to be saved by a protagonist
• gets captured or worse by antagonist
• portrayed as being beautiful and sexy for male audiences as eye candy
• Mostly survives at the end of the story
• A female scream is usually a sign of danger

And on the other hand, the male role is:

• portrayed as both the antagonist and the protagonist
• independent and sometimes emotionless
• in shape to show some physical appearance as strong
• the strong powerful lead role, demonstrated by low-angle shots
• a different ethnicity to the antagonist
• sometimes portrayed as the more important role over females.

For examples; Psycho, Nightmare on Elm's Street and Scream use vulnerable female characters up against a mysterious male character with a cloaked identity, either by lighting and camera angles or with literal masks and cloaks. Jaws takes a different approach however making the antagonist the shark and the humans the victims, but keeps the same tropes making the shark hidden throughout most of the film.