Triple Threat: 2018 Horror Movie Trailer Review
The Night Sitter
An occult aficionado hires a con-artist to babysit his son who is plagued by witches. I’ve actually never typed that sentence before in my life, so I am intrigued by The Night Sitter.
I enjoyed collecting evidence supporting my theory that this movie will be a surprise so bad it’s funny and good. I mean, the lighting we see in the trailer revels in ridiculous, reminiscent of the red-and-green 4,000-watt Wal-Mart Christmas floods my neighbor deploys the day after Thanksgiving. Furthermore, I believe I saw a nine-year-old packing heat in the form of a Flintlock pistol, and let’s not forget the knife collecting montage to sweet 80’s synth beats. Often, the best horror refuses to take itself seriously until it’s time for some killing.
Yes. I will be keeping an eye out for this one.
4/5 Screams
The Night Sitter was written and directed by Abiel Bruhn and John Rocco (A Not so Pleasant Surprise). It was executive produced by Jeffrey Reddick (Final Destination) and was partially financed via Kickstarter.
The Strangers: Prey at Night
I don’t see anything here I haven’t seen before. The name of the film is unoriginal, the plot appears listless, and I didn’t see any cool weaponry with which to fight evil or smite goodness in play. Axes and knives and masks Yawn.
Really, it all boils down to one fact: if Tiffany (or a cheap knock-off cover band) singing “I Think We’re Alone Now” can’t pull a trailer out from the refuse bin of recycled horror gimmicks, then what hope have you? This one is dead in the water.
1/5 Screams
Johannes Roberts directed The Strangers: Prey at Night. It is inspired by writer/director Bryan Bertino‘s 2008 The Strangers. Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman star.
Slender Man
I’ll not bandy words with you. This will be a total pile of garbage.
The following is my handy little guide to the warnings signs in a trailer for a bad movie:
- Does the trailer start with a disembodied monologue which ends with a rhetorical question?
- Does the trailer cut from the monologue to disjointed images of violence, leaving out any semblance of plot? Queue the maggots crawling and bloodied high school girls running from an unseen adversary. Throw in a gaggle of confused police for good measure.
- Do we see less than one line delivered by any character in the movie?
- At the end of the trailer, do the images and screams and bugs and blood splashes screech to a sudden halt for a slow moving intense action/scare and our first glimpse at the bad guy before dissolving into release dates for the film with organ music playing softly in the background?
- Is the movie in question based off a creepypasta written exclusively for thirteen-year-old girls whom apply black eye shadow with a dish sponge and watch entirely too much anime?
If you watch this trailer and can answer “yes” to more than four of the above questions, I give you… Slender Man.
0/5 Screams
Slender Man was directed by Sylvain White from a script by David Birke. It is based on the creepy pasta character created by Eric Knudsen. Jaz Sinclair, Julia Goldani Telles, Joey King and Annalise Basso star, with Javier Botet as Slender Man.
