Tease Me

If you’re like me then you hate to see movie consumers treated as if we’re pumpkin-headed idiots who need to be treated like we’re not bright enough to pick up plots or themes. The film has to be explained fully in a trailer. Everything has to be laid out. 

We see this in games as well. 

No one is willing to take a chance on something they may not like and are not up for the adventure of it all. 

Part of it is on us, right?

Our need for comfort and to be placated. 

The need to know if it’s worth our time. 

Just like the need to know whether it’s worth the cost of a new game now. 

We tend to shy away from mystery. 

What a shame. 

On both the part of the consumer and the marketing machinery. 

For me, I want that tease. 

I want you to show me some moments that hint at something grand but don’t give everything away. As much as people like to lament the Marvel movies they do a darned good job of not giving the mystery of their movies away. Maybe to their detriment, I guess, but for me, I love it. I love that tease. 

I ADORED the teaser trailer for CLOVERFIELD, which had people caught up in its mystery. From a new Godzilla movie to a Voltron film. The teaser dropped and the movie was in the immediate zeitgeist. 

You can say the same thing about BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. I still remember getting into an argument with the girl I was dating at the time about whether it was wrong to have a fake documentary about the Blair Witch on television because it might confuse people. I LOVED THAT. I loved that people believed it was real and that they leaned into it. 

We don’t need to be spoon-fed like we’re babies, we need to be wooed and teased. Movies are meant to be a trip outside of our day-to-day worlds and into another life. Some folks prefer to see thoughtful films about the human experience and others like to escape and see worlds and things they won’t see otherwise. I don’t want the spoilers, I want to discover the story as I am meant to. Sure, if all there is to it is a spoiler then it’s not a movie that will find legs beyond the initial watch but it’s part of the conceit of the story so I want it intact. 

I can’t lay the blame for movies not being teased at this current generation because it’s not a new thing. The film STARGATE notoriously gave away the ending IN THE TRAILER and it’s not the first movie to do it. The job of the filmmaker and the marketer are often at odds and you see all the time where the creative side laments how their work was sold to the public. Look at Del Toro’s CRIMSON PEAK, which was a romantic ghost story sold as a horror film teeming with spooks. People went in hoping to be scared witless but found a more thoughtful and sad gothic romance that was both haunted and haunting. Marketers are taking apart a film and selling the most exciting bits. Their job is to make it successful, at any cost. This means that many films are mis-sold and mischaracterized and that hurts the legs of the film. You go into a movie and think it’s one thing and, even if what you got wasn’t offensive, you still leave dissatisfied because you weren’t expecting that. 

Teaser trailers, and especially vague ones are dicey. You have to build up anticipation but don’t want to give anything away. For me, the most successful ones are the ones that aren’t necessarily even footage from the film but give you the idea, the tone, and the mystery of the movie. 

A PERFECT modern example is this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es1pFnq_VJ4

No one is fully sure what this is for as I write this, despite people probably guessing correctly, but man is it effective and chilling. 

It’s hard NOT to want to see what the movie is. 

THAT is what horror should do – it should whet the appetite without spoiling the meal. Other genres should take note as well. Sure, a period piece drama doesn’t necessarily benefit from a tease like this but…could it? It might. Not relying on a slow cover of a past classic song or modern rocker has been done in trailers. Using the bum-bum-BUM-BUM-BUUUUUM sound has been done. Movies have become SO boring now that we don’t even promote them properly. They’re just fodder for a streamer. 

Content. 

But they’re more than that. 

They are gateways to other worlds and to learning more about this one. 

They are reflections we may not want to see but sometimes need to. We should treat them as the special things they are. 

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS are often spent on these things to have them poorly advertised and then dumped on a streamer where they disappear on the virtual shelf or are put into a virtual vault if it’s more cost-effective to make it disappear. 

Teasers and teasing trailers can remind us of how magical films can still be. 

Look at the STAR WARS films and how that fanfare makes you feel and then the quick shots of what’s to come. 

Even if you don’t like the films the lead-in is amazing. 

I miss the days when studios and filmmakers were more playful about their films and wouldn’t just hand you the plot because they were worried you wouldn’t get it. 

Too much of what we’re love is being watered down and made into meaningless content and we need to push back. The dream of all media at our fingertips is gone and if we’re not careful any magic we have left we’ll lose as well as advertisers just tell us the whole story and ending because we won’t go see it unless we’re sure we’ll love it. 

That’s on us. 

And it’s our shame to carry. 

We need to be better.
We need to remember what it was like to feel that excitement about something mysterious we were desperate to see. 

We need to remember what it was like to be teased. 

…c…