Adventures in Horror and other thoughts

With part of my agreement with myself when I moved to LA I wanted to try and see a lot more and experience a lot more that I had for various reasons ignored or passed over while being in Philadelphia.  This includes watching more and more variety, AKA my list of shame (Coming soon!). Doing more, like visiting more stuff and just trying to become engrossed in the culture of the city; also reading more on horror or films in general.


In keeping with that promise to myself I went to something I had never done before and had let the opportunity pass my by in Philly. On Saturday, October 1st, the New Beverly Cinema here in LA did their 4th Annual Horror Movie Marathon. What it comprised of was 6 films shown in a row.  It was scheduled to start at 7:30pm and go to 7:30am. I was invited out of blue by someone and was totally intrigued by it. What really caught my eye with this is the fact that the 5 announced movies I had never seen any of them. Then there was a 6th secret movie that completely intrigued me.


The night ran smoothly it was a sold out event and it seemed like everyone there was pretty regular movie goers, e.g. no one was a douche. I had expected to have people calling out shit during the movies and ruining the experience. They also did a raffle which I was not anticipating where they gave away a lot of random things including vintage magazines, Joey Ramone’s video tape collection and porn related paraphernalia. Unfortunately I didn’t win so I can’t review a German made DVD of naked women shooting guns....darn!


Along with the films they also constantly showed trailers for other older horror films that were semi related to the film that we were about to watch. There were some really campy trailers for films such as : The Uncanny, Killer Bees, Don’t Go in the House. Mostly films I had never heard of but occasionally there were films I had seen. It was kind of interesting to see how they marketed the films before anyone knew anything about them.

Killer Cats...yeah I'll buy that.

For instance they showed the trailer for Ridley Scott’s Alien. That trailer was...not very good. It was mostly still images with text and voice-over. With the right music can be very creepy if edited correctly, but it randomly threw in clips from the film that totally kind of threw off any tension the trailer might have had going for it. They should have just stuck with the images and that would have been a lot more effective. Then the next trailer up was Aliens. That trailer was in my opinion was more effective and better at getting me excited for the film. I think part of the reason for that was that its closer to what a trailers are like today. 

Sometimes it's fun to watch old trailers to see how “bad” they are but you gotta take it all with a grain of salt....or sometimes a ton of salt. Trailers have changed a lot but are they more successful now, then they were at conveying emotions or interest? It is all relative to the times but to most would seem so.


Here is a trailer I like to watch every once in a while. It shows first how different trailers are now and how they were able to market what theoretically seems like an impossible movie to market.

                                     

If you haven’t seen Rope...stop and go watch it. Hitchcock manages to take a one room stage play and make it something that is exhilarating, smart and funny. The problem with marketing a movie like that is all of its excitement is in the dialogue.  The marketing guys for this one took care of the problem by showing a scene THAT’S NOT EVEN IN THE MOVIE! All while Jimmy Stewart is just talking to the audience.


Could you imagine if a movie trailer was like this today? For example, The Inception trailer is Cobb, getting the job you see them doing at the beginning of the film all while Cobb, or even better Michael Caine’s character talks to you about the movie? That shit just would not fly these days, as cool as it could be.

Trailers are something that I personally don’t watch to often (even though I would like to be a trailer editor) because of the spoilers. Ever since I saw the trailer for the movie Shutter Island, I had predicted the ending. I thought I was joking and saying how it would be ridiculous that they would give that much away in a trailer...I had just shrugged it off. Then upon seeing the movie I was just totally let down. I feel like that is something that has happened a lot more recently.


Trailer companies have no shame using shots or bits from any part of the movie. This is especially notorious in Horror films since the climax is usually towards the end of the film and that is where they want to pull clips from.  There are other trailers where they basically, or it least it feels like, they give away the plot. Seeing a trailer like this makes me much less interested in seeing it and taking the effort to go see it. For an example of this I look towards a film like Funny People. Admittedly I haven’t seen this film so I can’t judge how much of the plot they actually give away, but from the trailer I feel like I have just watched the whole film and there is no need to actually go see it.


Along with giving away too much in modern trailers just the assembly of them has changed a lot more cuts and more over-stimulation. It seems to work on today’s audience this kinetic cutting and other stimulating techniques. Just a complete shift from the Rope trailer or even the Alien trailer. These trailers in my opinon still can hold their own and are great at getting me interested in the films. Any thoughts on this topic from you guys? What are you some of your favorite trailers?

Well after that rant.....I will post my thoughts on the films I saw in two parts. In the next couple days.