Prom Night trailer

Posted by Chris

January 4, 2008

I agree with most of what Chris Campbell says about this new trailer for the remake of Prom Night. The trailer is certainly filled with enough not-so-subtle suggestions of high-school sex and violence, though mostly consisting in the trailer of people being pulled into/out of closets or other doorways, to make it largely inappropriate for young audiences. But the movie is rated PG-13, which seems to point to yet another shortcoming of that rating.

Chris (the other one) has a great analysis of how the suggestions of sex in the trailer may disappoint audiences (especially the under-15 set) who hope that there’s more graphic action in the actual movie, but that’s kind of the point.

Once again, the trailer is trying to turn out the adolescent audience on opening weekend, before word-of-mouth begins on the movie. ($10 says it winds up not being screened for critics.) As long as the studio can score $20 million that opening weekend then it’s all fine. The audience can go away feeling duped and disappointed, as long as they shell out their money for the ticket in the first place. The studio can then release the un-rated DVD and it’s all gravy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYPBBDcT6k0[/youtube]