Entertainment Weekly wondered why “Jennifer’s Body” had low box office returns, and suggested that people had their fill of the real Megan Fox through the media and didn’t need to see her in a movie. It’s always a shaky proposition to guess why something is popular or unpopular, but I think EW is stretching a bit, and I have a simpler theory that you can attach to almost any “surprisingly unsuccessful” film: The previews gave away too much of the movie, and people didn’t feel they needed to see it.
“The Stepfather,” which opens Oct. 16, takes this to an even greater extreme than “Jennifer’s Body.” I felt like I saw the entire film in the preview. I don’t know the roots of this trend of structuring previews like news reports, with the whole plot in there — beginning, middle, end — but I don’t like it.
The original “Stepfather” (1987) preview gives away a fair amount, too, but not to the extent of this new one.
The preview for the “Stepfather” remake actually gives away more than just the plot. I felt like I watched a complete performance, with different shadings depending on the scene, by the titular bad guy played by Dylan Walsh (a “too good to be true” guy who turns out to be just that).
Giving away the plot of a horror movie isn’t a huge deal, because horror movie plots follow a basic template, anyway; it’s the details and the memorable scenes that make one horror movie different from another. Unfortunately, “The Stepfather” gives away its kicker — the title character swings a running electric saw at a trapped girl. Note how the showcase scenes are absent from the 1987 preview.
Along with the plot and central performance, the preview also develops all the other major characters. It does this by using pop-culture shorthand. Penn Badgley, Sela Ward and the girl from “Hidden Palms” are basically lighter versions of characters they play/played on TV. A horror remake might’ve been a good opportunity to find fresh actors we hadn’t seen before; that used to be part of the genre’s charm. Heck, the new “Stepfather” seems so familiar they might as well have just cast Terry O’Quinn again.
I really felt like I was watching a short film, not a preview. You know that point two-thirds of the way through an OK movie when you look at your watch? You’re thinking, “This is OK, but I’m ready for it to be over.” I had that feeling while watching “The Stepfather” preview.
The overall message of the “Stepfather” preview is, “Don’t worry. This is all something you’ve seen before. And if you’re worried you’ll see something unexpected in the movie, well, we’ll show it to you now so you don’t have to be surprised.”
Because of all this, I don’t really want to see “The Stepfather” in its full movie form. The preview — or short film, as I see it — was decent. I liked the actors, I got a few thrills; I wasn’t really surprised, but I was mildly amused. But paying to see the movie? Why, when I already saw it for free, in an efficiently compressed timeframe, complete with the full emotional spectrum of seeing a movie?
In some movies and TV shows, surprise is still valued, although examples are becoming harder to find. Because “The Sixth Sense” was successful, M. Night Shyamalan is allowed to market his movies with the element of surprise intact. TV shows with wild ideas — “Fringe” and “Always Sunny,” for example — get to preserve surprise because it would be too much work to encapsulate the twisty plots into a short preview.
And there is one new movie that’s getting “Blair Witch”-style buzz. It’s called “Paranormal Activity,”and the preview does what it should: It piques my interest without making me feel like I saw the whole movie. (Of course, while I want to see “Paranormal Activity,” I can’t, because it’s not being widely released — “The Stepfather” is taking up all the screens, apparently — but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post that I already wrote.)
I really believe this “give it all away, right away” approach to marketing misjudges what moviegoers want. I know it’s not what I want. How about you? And if we’re in the majority, as I think we are, then why are there so many previews that give it all away?
Comments
The ending of the movie was given away in the “Castaway” preview starring Tom Hanks.# Posted By trevor | 10/4/09 9:14 AM