I hate movie trailers. I really do. The studios have totally lost sight of what a trailer should be. A trailer is supposed to be a teaser to entice you to see the movie.

Modern trailers though are not teasers at all. They usually show every exciting, intense, funny, scary, important, etc... moment that takes place in the movie. There are internet funny fan films online such as 30 Days of Night with bunnies in 30 seconds. They have done this for a number of popular films and mostly what they wind up doing is making a trailer for the movie.

When is the last time you saw a trailer and then watched the movie. Was there anything left out? When trailers first started being made they had a specific purpose and intent. It was to offer the viewer an enticement to head to the theater to see the film. They were careful to only offer enough information so that you needed to go.

One of my favorite was for Psycho. In the trailer they focused on Janet Leigh and her story about her life and going to the hotel. They didn't really get into the concept of the movie at all, and the fact that the star of the trailer gets killed so early in the movie...it was genius on Hitchcock's part. But then again, what did he do that wasn't?

One of the worst I can ever recall was for Nightbreed. One trailer focused on the psychiatrist. We saw him with his leather zipper mask and him in a few of his more menacing moments. The problem with this trailer though is that it mislead the viewer. It looked like a slasher movie and Nightbreed was far from a slasher movie. Totally different from the way the Psycho trailer was done.

Today, I refuse to watch trailers. In theaters I have often closed my eyes to avoid a trailer for something I know I am interested in. There needs to be a change in the way trailers are made. I want to be able to watch a trailer and still enjoy the movie when I go see it.

Bloody MonkeyZ

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