No movie-going experience is quite the same without trailers. Movie trailers preceding the feature presentation is a combination as inseparable as peanut butter & jelly or Raisinets & popcorn. And whenever I’ve arrived late to a film without seeing the trailers, well, there always seems to be something lacking from the experience… .like sex without the foreplay. But I digress; trailers are an art form unto themselves – they spur debate among film freaks, they sometimes ruin the movies themselves and they pump us full of hype for the next blockbuster.
Trailers from Hell is a video blog site that invites filmmakers, screenwriters and actors to comment on their favorite film trailers while we bask in the glow of their movie geek prowess. The best of these have been compiled into a feature presentation currently touring the film festival circuit with a recent screening taking place at SXSW.
Everyone from Eli Roth to George Hickenlooper to Allison Anders to Joe Dante to John Landis to Rod Lurie to Edgar Wright to screenwriters Sam Hamm and Larry Karaszewski among others offer their knowledge and personal recollections about some of the most amazing, and often forgotten, trailers. Watching filmmakers like Roth discuss his love of the Birds, or Edgar Wright discuss The Black Hole or Joe Dante discuss Earth VS. the Flying Saucers is like sitting in on a very private meeting of the Justice League of Movie Geeks and experiencing multiple nerdgasms to which I say, “Thank you, may I have another?!” Fortunately you can as the Trailers from Hell video blog is constantly updated.
By Chris Gore
