By Raquel Stecher
Ever been misled by a movie trailer? You watched a couple minutes of what seemed like clips from a romantic comedy… only to have the whole movie be anything but that. Or you caught a trailer for an action movie, only to realize later on that the trailer gave away all the good stuff. Or maybe one scene in the trailer piqued your interest… but when you watched the film, you discover that the clip that lured you in was left behind on the cutting room floor.
A bad movie trailer can set our expectations high, only to let us down—or, they can deter us from watching what was otherwise a fantastic movie! Not all trailers are bad. Some serve as the perfect first bite that sets us up for a delicious main course. But a bad movie trailer will leave us with a bad aftertaste and indigestion. What trailer misled you?
Let’s take a look at some terrible trailers for otherwise good movies. Some of these trailers were suggestions from fellow movie lovers on Twitter. Enjoy!
Martin Scorsese’s classic gangster flick Goodfellas has become one of the most beloved films of that sub-genre. The clips they chose for the trailer, and Ray Liotta’s voiceover, are fine in and of themselves. However, the music selection makes the film seem more lighthearted than it is. This downplays the film’s power as a deep dive into the gangster lifestyle.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Forrest Gump is the one of the greatest films of the 20th century. It was a huge success, critically acclaimed and won several Oscars. And what a cast! Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, etc. If you watch the trailer, you’d think you’re in for a tender coming-of-age story with some light comedy. It glosses over the film’s darker themes perhaps in an attempt to be more appealing to viewers.
The trailer bills this Merchant and Ivory drama set in contemporary Paris as a romantic comedy… when it is anything but that. Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts play ex-pat sisters whose love lives are tumultuous at best. Anyone watching the trailer won’t be prepared for the dark turn the film takes. At least it highlights the movie’s excellent cast!
I’m not sure what Warner Bros. was thinking when they released the trailer for Tim Burton’s adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Watching the trailer, you would think that this is simply a period horror film starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. They left out the fact that, you know, it’s a musical and there is a LOT of singing in it.
There’s many things wrong with how Hollywood marketed Megan Fox early on in her career. And how they packaged the trailer for Jennifer’s Body, presenting it as another cliche teen horror movie starring a hot chick, is just one example of that disservice. This excellent horror movie, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama, flips the script on the genre and presents viewers with a wonderfully feminist story. There’s a reason why this is a cult classic.
Sometimes, a trailer is misleading out of necessity because if you capture the true essence of a film, you might spoil it completely for a new viewer. Director Alexander Payne’s Downsizing features Matt Damon and a bevy of stars in this film about an alternate world where people opt in to being shrunk down in size so they can live a more comfortable life. The trailer makes it seem like a light drama when the film is actually quite unsettling.
Raquel Stecher has been writing about classic films for the past decade on her blog Out of the Past. She attends the TCM Classic Film Festival as well as other events where old movie fanatics get together to geek out. Raquel has been a devoted DVD Netflix member since 2002! Follow her on her blog Out of the Past or find her on Twitter @RaquelStecher and @ClassicFilmRead, Facebook, and Instagram.
