What's the worst movie TRAILER you've ever seen?

Cafe Society
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We all know what movies suck, but what’s the worst TRAILER you’ve ever seen? Categories could include Trailers That Tell You The Whole Damn Movie Anyway, Trailers That Misrepresent The Movie, and Trailers That Tell You Zilch But Fail To Arouse Curiosity.

My nominee would be a recent one, “The Affair of the Necklace.” It was apparently a pretty horrible movie, but I never saw it because the trailer made me want to kill myself.

The trailer is obviously pitching a European 18th century costume drama starring Hilary Swank and, terrifyingly, Christopher Walken. The trailer has no dialogue (until the end) and precious little explanation. You basically see Hilary running around in period costume, looking dramatic. While Hilary runs around, Sinead O’Connor shrieks in the background. There is much running around and shrieking, featuring all the standard Period Costume Cliche shots. Hilary wears an enormous hat while Sinead shrieks. Hilary shows off a low-cut dress. Hilary runs about a mansion. Hilary is running from someone. Sinead is still shrieking. Soldiers in ridiculous outfits run about.

Then, for no particular reason, a burning chair is hurled out a window and crashes into a courtyard. Why? It’s not clear why the chair was thrown out the window. Did they think moviegoers would say “Holy Christ, Martha, burning chairs being thrown outta windows. Gotta see that one! Maybe a table is next!”

Back to the trailer. Hilary’s character is now apparently taking charge and kicking ass because her hair is down, which is the Standard Movie Indication that a woman has Taken Charge and has Rejected Social Convention because she’s Not Going To Take It Anymore. Hair up = victim, hair down = subject of Meredith Brooks song. Sinead O’Connor is still shrieking, however. Suddenly Hilary has a sword or a knife, and she tells some guy “Now I have the power between us,” the first dialogue in the trailer I can remember. You go, sister!

Basically, that’s the trailer. Every possible costume drama cliche in a minute and a half, and all you can think is “Hey, look, Brandon Teena.” And then you get the title, which is an awful title and just makes it all seem worse.

Later they had a different trailer with dialogue added. It was a better trailer, but the movie was still obviously going to be dreadful.

What’s YOUR choice?

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The worse I’ve ever seen was a “trailer” for Rose Red coming out on DVD. It showed a black screen, said something like “This house is evil” then the screen went black again while they played 5 seconds worth of screams. Then the words " Rose Red coming to DVD May something or other" appeared in red on the screen. The End.

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Cops and Robbers, supposedly a comedy starring Josepg Bologna. The trailer told you the whole plot, right up to the climax. Once you saw the trailer there was no point in seeing the movie any more.

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I’ll post for Worst Trailer in the Trailers That Tell You The Whole Damn Movie Anyway category. They would be Cast Away and that movie with Richard Gere killing his wife’s lover. In the latter, the could have at least pretended there was a plot twist.

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Worst Trailer = GONE IN 60 SECONDS. Nicolas Cage. Lots of brakes squealing. Cars careening off of empty oil drums, etc. Totally uninteresting. And this trailer was the source of my GONE IN 60 SECONDS Law: The value of a movie is inversely proportional to the number of times “Let’s Go!” is shouted in the trailer.

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There are far to many trailers that mislead you about the nature of the movie. A.I., Bicentennial Man, and Gosford Park are just the three that I can think of off the top of my head. I thought Gosford Park was going to be a good old fashioned murder mystery movie and somewhat funny. The murder wasn’t important and it wasn’t funny.

Marc

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I particularly hate it when a scene in the trailer isn’t in the movie. I know, they shoot the trailers early and they can’t know if a certain scene is left on the editing room floor or not, it’s nobody’s fault, etc etc, but I still hate it.

Example: The trailer for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels had a scene where Steve Martin and Michael Caine were walking along a sidewalk next to a river, in proper aristocratic gait, when Steve Martin casually pushed an older woman into the river. Not in the movie.

And I’d bring up the “In a world where…” trailers, but they’ve reached self-parody status.

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That latest Jason flick. People were laughing their asses off in the theater. What a stupid movie.

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I’m not sure what category this fits under, but the trailer for Three Kings was simply atrocious. I can’t remember much about it, but I remember seeing it and thinking that I would never, ever watch such horrible dreck. But in actuality, it was a great movie, and if it hadn’t been for a friend that insisted that we see it, I would have missed out on a great cinematic experience because of the stupid trailer!

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Dooku: The infamous Dirty Rotten Scoundrels trailer is discussed in commentary on the DVD. They needed something to promote the movie at some event (ShoWest, Cannes, don’t remember), and they weren’t far along enough in the shoot to have anything to assemble. So Steve Martin came up with that little idea, and they sent a camera crew to the waterfront and dashed it off. It was such a hugely successful clip that lots of people asked them later why it wasn’t in the movie, even though it was basically a punt.

Re the OP (very funny, by the way, RickJay – “hair down = subject of Meredith Brooks song” – snicker):

I’m normally pretty much immune to the “sucky trailer effect,” because I keep tabs on the industry and almost invariably know which movie is being advertised within the trailer’s first two or three seconds. It’s rare indeed for a trailer to be my introduction to a film; I almost always have a preliminary opinion based on script reviews, early casting squabbles, production reports, and so on.

But one preview caught me off guard, just recently. In front of Minority Report was a trailer for something called swimfan (yes, apparently all lowercase). I hadn’t heard anything about it, and it seemed to be a Serious Movie (especially since it was put on Minority Report; the studios are normally pretty good about their demographic targeting), so I actually paid attention to it.

By the midway point, I was thinking, “What the hell is this?” It’s apparently an unapologetic remake of Fatal Attraction reset to a college-freshman environment, with a few cosmetic updates for the modern audience (emailing digital photos, etc.). I kept looking at the Glenn Close character ripoff, thinking, “Is that Julia Stiles? No, doesn’t look like her; no, wait, maybe it is. Maybe this was filmed a couple of years ago and shelves. Oh wait, now they’re having sex in a swimming pool. Didn’t they learn anything from Showgirls?”

So this is a trailer that may or may not qualify for the first two of your three categories: Perhaps the movie sucks, but they don’t know it, so they show the whole plot as if they think it’s cool; or perhaps the movie’s pretty good, but they know that Good Doesn’t Sell so they have to pretend it’s actually a dumbass thriller (c.f. Changing Lanes). Either way, it’s a staggeringly horrible preview; it actually provokes derisive sniggering in the audience.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, it wasn’t Julia Stiles, it’s Erika Christensen (the daughter in Traffic).

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I just saw a trailer for what looks to be a horrible waste of time called Swimfan. I think it showed every single ridiculous plot point.

I didn’t see the movie Rat Race, but the trailer gave us a complete comedy sequence from the middle of the movie; set-up, development and punchline. Do they want people to go to the movie feeling like they’ve already seen it?

I’d call the trailer for the Sylvester Stallone movie Cliffhanger misleading because the trailer was exciting and intriguing. Movie sucked.

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Just for the sake of accuracy, I should correct myself; the movie is apparently called swimfan@, as in an e-mail address.

For some reason, a lot of trailers use music that isn’t in the movie. I don’t know how many trailers I’ve seen that have used the stirring music from Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story.

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Yeah, the trailer for Swimfan looks like it gives everything away, including the finale. Even if I wanted to see it, I don’t see why I should, since I’ve already seen the whole thing for free.

Another candidate for Trailers That Tell You The Whole Damn Movie Anyway: Sphere. The reasons are explained very well, at length, in Jabootu’s review.

The recently-released teaser for Solaris is a good candidate for the Trailers That Tell You Zilch But Fail To Arouse Curiosity category. You get, what, the title, and a spaceship, and that’s pretty much it. No music, nothing. Okey dokey.

I’m trying desperately to remember a movie that made a big impression on me recently, because it was promoted as though it was a comedy but it SO was not…and the title’s not coming to me. damn. I’ll have to come back.

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Thanks Cervaise - didn’t know that.

I just remembered a stupid trailer for a Pauly Shore movie many years ago where the entire trailer was a large close-up of his face, while he looked down and pretended to be able to “see” the audience. IIRC he said things like “Dood - is that your gi-irlfriend, she’s check–in me ow—out…huh huh huh”. The entire audience sat there in complete silence. Not even a shout-out from some teenager fan of his in the audience.

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Some trailers are forgettable until the ridiculous title comes up- then there’s a brief silence (maybe someone whispers “ouch”), and then roaring laughter, after which I check out the production house and call my stock broker. Examples include “The Astronaut’s Wife” and, yes, “Swimfan”. The only horrible trailer I can think of, not including anything straight-to-video (a class of their own, I tell ya) is for “Pay it Forward”. Even the gushiest romantics could feel the bile rise to the backs of their throats. Aww, but he’s bitter, emotionally detached, and horribly deformed- and she’s trailer trash with a heart of gold- and that sweet, sweet angel of a child actor! How could it NOT be good?

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The Jason preview had us laughing in the theater as well. One of the more memorable ones was “The Nude Bomb,” the movie based on the “Get Smart” TV show.

All right, we understood pretty quickly that it was a bomb that destroyed all the clothing, but did you have to repeat the gag a dozen times?

People standing in bus queue. BOOM. Naked people standing in bus queue.

People in stands at football game. BOOM. Naked people in stands at football game.

Royal Guardsmen in formation. BOOM. Naked RGs in formation.

And on. And on. And on. Considering I can still remember the trailer after years well, decades, really of movie watching will tell you how much of an impression this made on me. Damnit.

Of course, at my age, I :rolleyes: the trailer for the “Vin Diesel” movie “XXX” as a trashy attempt at a Bond movie aimed at the youngin’s. Don’t these kids know about “Thunderball” and “Dr. No.”

::walks off, grumbling::

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The trailer to Strange Days. There were two, one which was incredibly well done and didn’t give much away. Great music, lots of good clips involved, not too much given away, and the editing to it was beautiful. Unfortunately, that one hardly aired until AFTER the movie spent it’s week and a half in theaters. The trailer they DID push, was nothing but a closeup of Ralph Fines giving a speach about how he’s the “Magic Man” in front of a white background. It told absolutely NOTHING about the movie, and thus, it bombed BIG TIME. But it is an Excellent movie that everyone should see.

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Hart’s War. The trailer made this out to be a action-filled war movie. The reality was: a mind-numbingly boring, depressing prison camp courtroom drama.

zZzZzZzZzZz

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Blue Crush. Oh, look! It’s a girl, but she can surf! Oh, she landed on a rock, poor thing. Wow, her whole dialogue consists of three syllable sentences! I gotta see me that movie! :rolleyes:

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When I went to see Spiderman, they had the trailers for XXX and Bad Company. The XXX trailer had only decent moment; it came when some boring old government official was explaining how the hero was going to have to be noble and make sacrifices for his country, etc etc… Then it cuts immediately to a scene with the hero observing a scantilly clad female in bed. The Bad Company trailer also had only one decent moment, and it was exactly the same scene. Same setup, same punchline. It’s as if the marketing departments for the two studios were collaborating to make sure that we realized how similar and uninspired these movies are.