Thursday, November 12, 2009

The subject of some movies is so disturbing that those who experience them will never be the same again.

I have a weekend coming up that will be filled with theater and great friends, so I'm going to disappear for a few days, but I'll leave you with a little something here...

Over at Dinner with Max Jenke, Jeff Allard did a superlative job of marking the 13 days leading up to Halloween with an array of movie trailers that ran the gamut from the iconic to the idiosyncratic, and each day was like a wonderful little present just waiting on my laptop, ready to be opened. During one day's comment sidebar, Jeff made reference to the fact that he would be including a marvelous trailer for an awful movie (I'm guessing that gaping chasm in quality was represented by Exorcist II: The Heretic, right Jeff?), so I made my own internal prediction as to what film it would be...and was wrong. However, that this cinematic achievement not go unnoticed, I offer it as a bagatelle, a small token to tide you over until I post more substantially in just a couple of days.

In September of 2004, I was winding up a stint as an assistant manager at a movie theater and preparing for a move to Chicago for a new job. The cinema had just opened Cellular, the latest from High Concept King Larry Cohen, and a man responsible for more than a few of my most treasured Guilty Pleasures. Attached was a trailer that, putting it simply, was freaking out the employees, with more than a few of them saying they didn't even want to enter auditoriums when this preview was running. It's a stunner, one of the few I know to very effectively raise gooseflesh on its own merits...and much more so than the film it promoted. In fact, it's an award-winner - the recipient of 2005's Golden Fleece Award at the Golden Trailers...which is given to the Best Trailer for the Worst Movie. (Coincidentally, Cellular was also a nominee in this category.) And I love how the voice-over contains a variation on the classic ad-line for the fictional horror movie The Freak, which - thanks to the efforts of Dudley Moore in the comedy Crazy People - bore the slogan, "This movie will f*ck you up for the rest of your life." I want to live long enough to see a movie actually use that for a tagline.

And so, gentle readers, without further ado, I give you all that you will ever need - or want - to see from 2005's......White Noise.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember being thoroughly pissed scared when this awesome trailer came out. One of the best horror trailers ever in my humble opinion. God I wish the movie actually followed suit. It had its moments for sure, but it also reminded us why Michael Keeton isn't a successful lead actor.

Jeff Allard said...

Senski, you may not believe this but White Noise was on my list for Trick or Trailers!! I never got to it, obviously, because other trailers kept moving ahead of it in my estimation but it is one of my all-time favorite spots. I remember flipping out when I first saw it and my wife being too terrified to watch the commercials when they began airing on TV. I think it's a brilliant trailer and it's a damn shame the movie wasn't even a third as effective.

Thanks for posting it, Senski - and for the very kind shout-out!

I Like Horror Movies said...

Ohhh I most certainly remember how scary that damn trailer was, I was immediately all in on the film. I cant believe what a frackle stick car it ended up being once I finally got to see it. How can you mess that friggin concept up? All you have to do is make freaky-deaky sound clips and youll have your audience pissing blood