Editorials
‘IT’: The Interesting Reason Why the Blood is Black in the Trailer
The outstanding teaser trailer for Andrés Muschietti’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s It was released yesterday, and it would be an understatement to say that people were impressed. One complaint that I kept seeing across the internet was one of disappointment in the fact that the blood flying out of Beverly Marsh’s sink was no longer blood, but rather some strange black liquid. Others believed that the liquid was blood but the filmmakers actively chose to make it black. If you were one of those people,* let me assuage your concerns. The liquid coming out of Ms. Marsh’s sink is most definitely blood, and it will be red when you see the film. It just can’t be red in the trailer.
When I got to see the trailer at the SXSW Conference and Festivals earlier this month, I mentioned that Muschietti warned us that the effects for the trailer hadn’t been completed yet, but I couldn’t tell what he was referring to. Everything in the trailer looked complete to me. It turns out he was referring to the blood exploding out of Beverly’s sink. In the version of the trailer I saw, the blood was still red. The studio had to CGI over the blood in order to make it black because the Motion Picture Association of America has very strict guidelines on what you can and can’t show in a Green Band Trailer (trailers with that green screen that shows before them that says “The following preview has been approved for ALL AUDIENCES by the Motion Picture Association of America”).
According to the MPAA’s Advertising Administration Rules, “Approved (Without Restriction)” forms of film advertisement may not include:
Realistic or excessive violence, brutality or scary images, including, but not limited to: depictions of blood or wounds; scenes of torture; dismemberments; mutations or mutilations of bodies (including cadavers); people in jeopardy, including images of people being abused, punched, beaten, bound or gagged; disturbing or frightening scenes, including some transformations and morphing particularly when a character becomes abnormal or grotesque; children in peril, including verbal or physical abuse of children; overt references to or scenes depicting death of a parent or a child; realistic depictions of natural disasters; intense depictions or threats from supernatural creatures or the occult; cruelty to animals; and people or animals on fire (except where, in the opinion of the Advertising Administration, the portrayal is clearly unrealistic to audiences, such as a comic book character).
What that description conveniently leaves out is one important descriptor: approved forms of advertisement (or “Green Band Trailers,” as you might know them as) may not include depictions of red blood. If it’s not red, then a small child won’t think it’s blood. This is why so many of the horror film trailers you see have black blood instead of red blood, and that also applies to the trailer for It. This isn’t the first time you have seen this in a movie trailer before. Just look at the blood trail left by the pitchfork in the trailer for 2010’s The Crazies or the blood-stained hospital mask of the infected girl in the trailer for the PG-13 film Carriers. You just can’t show blood in green-band trailers (red band trailers are another story).
Related: Here’s the Terrifying ‘IT’ Trailer in 50 Hi-Res Images!
Interestingly enough, the red blood rule also applies in some way to a film as a whole. For example, if a film contains a certain amount of red blood, it could face an NC-17 rating as opposed to an R rating (Wes Craven’s Scream ran into this issue back in 1996). Because of this, filmmakers have been finding creative ways to work around that rule. Think the Crazy 88 scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, or the entirety of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City. Tarantino filmed The Bride’s (Uma Thurman) famous fight scene in black and white. Rodriguez filmed all of Sin City in black and white as well, and most of the colored blood was yellow (from the Yellow Bastard). Ignoring the fact that Sin City was going to be filmed in black and white no matter what in order to match the artistic style of Frank Miller’s graphic novel upon which the film is based, it’s a pretty clever loophole. If the blood isn’t red, then it’s not really blood! It’s a little silly when you think about it, but those are the rules.
So I hope this clears some things up for those of you who were worried about the mysterious black liquid. I can’t wait to check out It when it hits theaters on September 8th!
In the film, seven children known as The Losers’ Club come face to face with life problems, bullies, and a monster that takes the shape of a clown called Pennywise.“
Bill Skarsgard stars as Pennywise, the sewer-dwelling monster.
The members of the modern Losers’ Club will be portrayed by Jaeden Lieberher (as Bill Denbrough), Finn Wolfhard (as Richie Tozier), Jack Dylan Grazer (as Eddie Kaspbrak), Wyatt Oleff (as Stan Uris), Chosen Jacobs (as Mike Hanlon), Sophia Lillis (as Beverly Marsh) and Jeremy Ray Taylor (as Ben Hanscom).
The Leper will be portrayed by Creature performer Javier Botet, and the trio of bullies who torment the Losers’ Club will be portrayed by Nicholas Hamilton (as Henry Bowers), Owen Teague (as Patrick Hocksetter), Logan Thomspn (as Victor Criss) and Jake Sim (as Belch Huggins).
Dan Lin, Roy Lee, Seth Grahame-Smith, David Katzenberg, and Barbara Muschietti produce.
*I understand that many readers probably understand the difference between a green- and red-band trailer but this post is for the readers that don’t understand that. Please be kind to them in the comments.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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