When done right, the movie preview is an art-form just as compelling, sometimes even more so, than the film it advertises. Because we are so often inundated with the same ol' generic clip reel/entire fucking plot reveal trailers, people often forget the potential for innovation that these little advertisements have. Case in point: the trailer for David Cronenberg's masterpiece Videodrome.
Containing compelling, if purposefully poorly animated, cartoon images (none of which appear in the film), it has the feel of an early eighties new wave music video. Over dancey electronica, the narrator tells us of a newfangled bio-electronic addiction called videodrome. No explanation is given for this videodrome thingy. No introduction to the story. No introduction to characters. Tantalizingly, though, it does offer us a few fleeting glimpses of two of the leads (James "Motherfuckin'" Woods and Deborah Harry). Abruptly enough, the trailer fades out with a robotic voice repeating the word videodrome.
Although I was too young to have seen this movie, or its trailer, in the theaters (I was three when it was released), I saw the flick many years later on the recommendation of a friend. It wasn't until a few years ago, after I had seen the movie many times, that I saw the trailer online. I was blown away. Had I been old enough at the time, and seen this trailer I most definitely would have been first in line to watch this picture. It is one of the best teasers I have ever seen. Watching this trailer, I would have little clue as to what might be contained in this movie, but I would know one thing. I would have to watch it immediately.
[Here is a more conventional trailer for the film:]
1 comment:
i think you have brought this up before but there is no worse movie trailer than jacob's ladder....it would have been as if Dan LaFontaine says, "In a movie where Bruce Willis is actually dead the WHOLE time."
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