[imdb Haunting in connecticut]Haunting in Connecticut was well done. It was chilling, thrilling, it had a good story and well-developed characters. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the film, despite having already seen some of the scary parts in the trailer.
I think the trailer was put together in such a way that the emotions made more of an impact on the viewer than the images. When I would discuss The Unborn with my friends, before I had seen the film, everyone knew of the trailer from the creepy old man crab walking down the hall, the evil little boy in the film projection, and the scary dog/demon creature wearing a ghoulish mask.
With Haunting in Connecticut, the trailer gives you much more of a sense of plot. I did recall the weird picture of the boy with ectoplasm foaming out of his mouth, but it was such a strange image that my brain could not focus on it, because I had nothing familiar to connect it to. It wasn’t till I saw the whole film that I even knew the weird bubbly mass was ectoplasm. I was more creeped out over the kid from Veronica Mars than the icky film clips.
Thus, when I watched Haunting in Connecticut in its entirety, the startling moments truly startled me, because I remembered the trailer as a whole as creepy, instead of remembering specific scenes. Despite being bombarded with scary clips, I was still pleasantly surprised. I guess there is something to be said for overloading the senses.
[imdb 17 Again]17 Again was very cute. The trailer portrayed it very well: a light-hearted, magical romp where everyone finds their true place in life. Yes, it’s an old story, but the film does a good job of taking a tired fairy tale and giving it a new spin. There weren’t any especially riotously funny parts, but it gave my friend and me a good time.
I think the trailer did a nice job of succinctly setting up the main plot of the film without giving us a play-by-play. There were a few details in the set-up that were rightly left out of the preview, and made for some nice dramatic tension. This strategy is in direct opposition to, say, Funny People’s trailer, where the audience already knows the ins and outs of the conflict without even watching the film.
On the whole, though, the trailer for 17 Again leaves very few surprises for the viewer. You can pretty much guess how to film is going to flow. Just from watching the trailer, my fiance took note of the scene where Effron has his arm around his “daughter” Michelle Trachtenberg. Dan predicted that there was going to be a little confusion on the daughter’s part, what with the sexy, talented new kid paying her a bunch of unwarranted attention. Who can blame the poor girl? Just goes to show you that magical time-travel can lead into some sticky situations (see Back to the Future).
[imdb tt0844708] So I’ve been avoiding having to do a review on this trailer. There are just too many emotions I have about this film. Three years ago, when I first moved out here to L.A., fresh out of college, I, of course, was unemployed. I was also bored out of my gourd. During that time, I became frustrated at the prospect of having to choose from my collection of 150 movies I’d already seen, and set about raiding my roommates’ libraries. Jason and I are constantly bickering about films, so, almost out of spite, I bypassed his collection, and instead checked out Carrie’s.
Carrie is a horror film addict. Her walls are covered in horror film posters, and she has almost every slasher film you can think of. Her favorite director is Wes Craven (she especially loves the Scream series), and tucked in with all her DVDs I found The Last House on the Left. “Hmmm,” I thought, “looks interesting.” It looked like a film that belonged in my mother’s cult classics book, which, when I was younger, I would surreptitiously read about The Legend of Billy Jack, Pink Flamingoes, Harold and Maude, and Behind the Green Door, as though it were forbidden knowledge…and as though my mother would even care I was sneaking a read.
So, I settled myself in front of the tv, to watch the film while I mated socks and folded laundry. It isn’t really a sock mating movie. It was like a train wreck; I was transfixed. It was probably the most gruesome film I’d ever seen. When Carrie came home that night, I mentioned it to her, and even she said that she had only seen it once, and once was enough for her.
It’s not as though I shy away from films with gritty subject matter. I don’t devote all of my hours of film watching to Disney Princesses and dog movies. I like a film that can turn my stomach and still make me think. Hard Candy, The Hole, and Heavenly Creatures still resonate with me (all H movies…interesting). There is something about certain films that hit you in just the right way that they embed themselves into your subconscious.
Last House on the Left certainly did that, and that is why I am so disgusted by the idea of the remake. It would be like remaking Casablanca or Citizen Kane. The Last House on the Left was Wes Craven pushing the boundaries of the horror film. He literally dissected what was on screen in order to show as many of the guts of realism as he could, without being completely censored and cut off. There is a nausea inducing element to the film where the audience empathizes with the characters to the extent that they imagine what it would be like to be them. Craven shows the baseness of human nature that audience members can’t see from the news or reading the papers. I applaud him for that…but I cannot condone this repackaging and franchising of the film. The first thing I think when I see the trailer is they are just in it for the money.
Yes yes, aren’t they all, you might say, but young Wes Craven wasn’t? He set out to evolve a genre, and he did just that. But now, instead of putting energy into trying to find something NEW, he just pulls out the tattered old script and says, “Here!” Wipes his hands together, “I’m done for the day.”
Shenanigans, I say.
Well, as for the trailer, it shows everything. There is nothing left to the imagination. We know what happens to the girls, we know the parents find out, and we know they take revenge. There is no reason to see the movie except to maybe compare it with the original. It’s appalling. The only thing that I’ve heard people are surprised about is the rape scene, which, if they knew anything about the original film, they should have expected. Furthermore, it annoys me that people would be so gung-ho to see this film when the trailer is riddled with violence, and then they’re offended at the rape scene. Why is society so ho-hum about murder and bloodshed, but rape is a no-man’s-land?? Do they not understand that it is all violence? Do they feel guilty about watching a rape but not about watching a paralyzed man with his head in a microwave? Does nobody see the imbalance there? Yes, rape scenes are uncomfortable, but they are no more or less “artistic” than the dozens of throat slashings, point blank head shots, and eye gouges. If you are going to see this movie to get that thrill that comes with seeing so much violence, I think you deserve that entire uncomfortable experience.
On the other hand, I love the last half of the trailer, with the horrific violence, the images of the parents avenging their baby girl, with the Taken by Trees cover of Sweet Child of Mine overlayed. The sweet slow pace of the song gives the viewer the sense that the parents themselves are immune to the brutality they are inflicting on these strangers, thinking only of their sweet child, dying on the kitchen table. Despite the fact that the author has probably shown us all of the highlights of the film (at least the ones they’re allowed to show on tv), the song choice intermingled with the content makes me want to give the film a shot. Thus, I’ll probably rent it on DVD.
That is why I review film trailers, because whatever audience the film ends up attracting is usually dependent on the quality of the trailer.
[imdb tt0080761]Despite what my friends will tell you, I was not the only person in our group to say “What are they counting to?” when we first saw the new Friday the 13th trailer. Plus, I figured it out quickly enough, so there. Although these trailers aren’t any longer than other theatrical trailers, for some reason, with them counting to 13, it feels like they go on forever. I get that they are trying to be clever, and I also like the nostalgia it conjures from the original film’s trailer, but it did seem to drag a little.
The original (from 1980) Friday the 13th’s trailer has some fun with its music, to get some spines chilled in the 2.5 minute montage. It also uses clips with some pretty heavy built-in suspense, like where we see the kid ascending into the cabin, from pretty much the killer’s perspective; as he enters the cabin, the camera pulls away, and the audience is left to wonder what’s going on.
However, it takes away from the tension you’d get if you actually watched the movie, because it shows how each character dies. Now, when you watch the film, you’re going to be primed for the deaths, instead of being surprised. I don’t know, but maybe the trailer wasn’t shown as often in 1980 as trailers are shown today, so maybe people would have forgotten by the time they got around to seeing the movie, but it still seems a little anticlimactic.
[imdb tt0758746]The new film’s trailer is a little less blatant. It uses some clever editing (i.e. fades, flashes, quick cuts) to try to detract from the fact that they are still giving away the murders…only more creatively. We can still gleen who’s going to bite it when, but it happens in such quick sucession, we tend to doubt what our eyes just saw. The quick cuts are slightly misleading, but essentially we’re shown the murders.
The new film was rumored by some to be a remake of the first, but it was plainly a sequel. So it’s interesting that the new trailer is mimicing the original. While I dislike the original giving away climactic points, I love how it draws out the suspense. The new trailer does not give me goosebumps until the end when it uses the creepy “kill kill kill” sound effects and has the mother talking about Jason in her eerie little voice. I liked the original movie, despite being long and drawn out, because it seemed a study in the animalistic sort of hunting of camp counselers, and of course the baiting of the audience.
The new film’s trailer shows the audience exactly what they should expect from the film, a little sex, a little suspense and a LOT of blood and gore. So, for present-day trailer standards, it’s a pretty decent trailer, despite practically handing us the punchlines of all the murders. I will say, though, that having seen the movie, if you’re a fan of creative, gruesome murder scenes, this film is pretty good at that. Not the best, but not bad.
[imdb he’s just not that into you]I know this film has been out for a while, but I enjoyed the trailer so much, I needed to review it anyway. I’m not usually a fan of ensemble pieces; I usually get invested in one or two of the characters and get bored when the others are on screen. However, this film does a really good job of balancing the time and energy put into developing each character.
The trailer nicely showcases the characters, plot lines, and humor evident in the film. It gives the audience some very good examples of the jokes they should expect to hear, the banter, the neurotic characters; without the irritating habit most trailers have of giving away the end.
From the trailer, the viewer gets the sense that the film is a little deeper and more heartfelt than your typical romantic comedy, but still a comedy with romance, nonetheless. However, the trailer doesn’t have a single scene with one character chasing after another one; we are not told outright how the film will end. If you are a seasoned film-goer, there are many cinematic clues you can glean from the scenes chosen by the trailer author, but even when you’re watching the film, you still do not quite know where it’s heading.
I absolutely love every clip the trailer has of Ginnifer Goodwin. I must admit that it was mainly her little expressions, like when she dismissively waves her hand towards the phone, that made me really want to see the film. I must say, I was not disappointed. Her character alone was enough for me to like the film, despite her innate neuroses.
