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[BEST & WORST ’12] The Best Trailers Of The Year!

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In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need trailers. We’d magically show up at the movie theater, be seated in front of a screen and watch an amazing movie that we, up until that point, had never seen a frame of footage from.

But the world we actually live in is occasionally not-so-great, so trailers exist. Silver lining? At lot of trailers are badass! Some of them are sometimes (unfortunately) better than the film they’re selling! An effective teaser can often be an inspiring piece of work that you watch again and again.

With that in mind I set out to take a look at trailers released this year that actually got me excited. Some of the these movies haven’t come out yet, nor have I seen all of them. But that’s the point! If a trailer has me stoked about next year – it’s a success. And with some of the other teasers I almost wish I hadn’t seen the movie, so perfect were the two minutes they chose to promote it with.

Head inside for the best trailers of the year (in no particular order)!

Mr. Disgusting (Best/Worst) | Evan Dickson (Best/Worst) | David Harley (Best/Worst) | Lonmonster (Best/Worst) | Corey Mitchell (Best of Fest) | Supporting Staff (Best & Worst) | Ryan Daley (Best Novels)
Posters (Best/Worst) | Trailers (Best/Worst)

THE EVIL DEAD

Holy f*cking sh*t. I feel like almost every naysayer ate their words when they saw this. Judging by this trailer, this is a remake done right. Taking the spirit, idea and intent behind the original and then taking it to places the original filmmakers simply couldn’t at the time they made it.

WARM BODIES

In which director Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane) dips his toes back into the horror genre after the funny, touching character studies of his last two films. I know there are some haters out there, but this trailer has such a warm and infectious energy that I can’t resist it. Very much looking forward to this one.

PROMETHEUS


I included the teaser on last year’s list, but the full trailer didn’t hit until this year. What a thrilling and invigorating 2 minutes! The trailer that started the argument, “what if trailers are just too good for their movies to live up to now?” Can you remember the days when you thought Prometheus might rock this f*cking hard?

PACIFIC RIM

This trailer tells you all you need to know. Big, huge, Guillermo Del Toro. While I don’t think everything he does is perfect – his characters often don’t engage me – it’s going to be a blast attaching him play in his biggest and most expensive sandbox yet.

MANIAC

Word on the street is that Franck Khalfoun’s Maniac remake is something of a slasher masterpiece. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can only go by this super creepy trailer that looks like the world’s most nightmarish perfume ad come to life.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4

It’s a testament to how unrelentingly monochromatic this series is that I got excited about some green Kinect dots. But I did. Too bad this movie is TERRIBLE. PA3 4 LYFE.

STOKER

The trailer for Chan-wook Park’s latest is intriguing and full of menace. It manages to give us a sense of the story without showing too many of its cards. It sells us without spoiling us. I don’t need to see any more than this, I’m in.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS


Selling The Cabin In The Woods is such a damned if you do and damned if you don’t proposition. If you play it close to the vest (and save the twisty stuff for later), it looks like just another slasher. If you show all your cards, it looks overly meta and confusing. Given the fact that movies actually have to be sold, I actually think this trailer straddles the line quite well.

THE ICEMAN

Not a great trailer in the traditional sense, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make me curious to see this movie. I love the HBO documentaries on Richard Kuklinksi and Michael Shannon seems like the perfect fit to play him. Toss Winona Ryder, James Franco, Chris Evans and Ray Liotta into the mix and I’m sold.

Editorials

‘Phantasm’ – Why the Horror Classic’s Exploration of Death Still Resonates 45 Years Later

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As Benjamin Franklin famously wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

The horror genre offers a controlled environment in which viewers can reflect on their own morality, whether it be via catharsis or escapism, but a personal loss can complicate one’s relationship with horror. Even the most hardened of fans may struggle to find comfort in the genre after experiencing the death of a loved one.

45 years ago today, Phantasm helped viewers confront death head-on while subtly exploring the grief that accompanies it. In the film, 13-year-old Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) convinces his older brother-turned-guardian Jody (Bill Thornbury) and their affable neighborhood ice cream man, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), to investigate a mysterious mortician dubbed The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).

Phantasm was the third feature from writer-director Don Coscarelli (The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-Tep). The seed was planted upon witnessing the audience react to a small jump scare at a preview screening for his previous effort, the 1976 coming-of-age tale Kenny and Company. Chasing that jolt of adrenaline, he challenged himself to make a movie that delivers scares regularly throughout.

The independent production was shot in 1977 on weekends over the course of nearly a year in and around southern California’s San Fernando Valley. The 23-year-old Coscarelli shrewdly rented the film gear on Fridays and returned it Monday morning, getting three days of work out of a single day’s rental fee. When all was said and done, the film cost an estimated $300,000.

Unable to afford a full crew, Coscarelli also took on director of photography and editing duties. His father, Dac Coscarelli, receives a producer credit for providing a large chunk of the film’s funding. Additional financing was invested by doctors and lawyers, accruing a total estimated budget of $300,000. His mother, Kate Coscarelli, served as production designer, wardrobe stylist, and makeup artist under different pseudonyms, and she later wrote the novelization.

Hot off the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, AVCO Embassy Pictures purchased Phantasm for distribution. It was released on March 28, 1979 in California and Texas before expanding to other territories and becoming a box office success. It spawned four sequels, with Coscarelli and the core cast on board throughout, along with a cult following that counts Quentin Tarantino, Rob Zombie, Snoop Dogg, and JJ Abrams (who named Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ Captain Phasma in its honor) among its ranks.

PHANTASM Remastered

The film embraces nightmare logic – in part by design, as Coscarelli drew influence from Suspiria; partly the result of extensively editing down an overlong first cut to a tight 89 minutes. The it-was-all-a-dream ending is a rare one that doesn’t undermine the entire movie that preceded it. Not every plot point is spelled out for the viewer, and some dots may not completely connect, but the narrative is conveyed in such an engrossing manner that it hardly matters.

A particularly striking pair of back-to-back sequences occur at the conclusion of the first act. Following a late-night graveyard excursion, the camera pulls out on a shot of a sleeping Mike to reveal his bed in the cemetery with The Tall Man poised over him while ghouls attack from their graves. The next day, Mike witnesses The Tall Man affected by the chill of Reggie’s ice cream truck via a spine-tingling slow-motion zoom.

The special effects also shine, from flying metallic spheres that suck the blood out of victims’ heads to lifelike severed fingers that bleed viscous yellow gore. The visuals are supplemented by progressive music composed by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, to whom Coscarelli recommended electronica maestro Vangelis and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Despite its repetition throughout the film, the power of their haunting musical theme is never diluted.

The cast was populated by amateurs, but occasionally hammy performances are far outweighed by naturalistic character moments, best exemplified by the scene in which Jody and Reggie jam on their guitars together. In addition to serving the plot by introducing the tuning fork that plays an integral role in the finale, it allows the viewer to better connect with the characters, thereby making their peril all the more frightening.

It’s character building like this that makes Phantasm‘s exploration of death so effective. The film is ultimately about Mike coming to terms with the passing of Jody, portrayed as the cool older sibling every adolescent wishes they had. Mike confronts his fear by dreaming up a final adventure with his dearly departed brother in which they manage to defeat death itself, represented by The Tall Man. Upon doing so, he’s awakened to the harsh reality that Jody died in a car accident, allowing Mike to reach the final stage of grief: acceptance.

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