Deleted Scenes 07.23.09: Cautiously Optimistic, Totally Optimistic, and Uproariously Laughing at a Particularly Bad Trailer
Posted by Robert Sullivan on 07.23.2009
Clearly detailing the content of your column in its title...not such a bad thing. Come on in.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Deleted Scenes, I'm Rob, and this is the grand party bus on which we share many Very Special Columns. Is that the deal with today's errant scribblings? For the answer to that, keep on scrolling, because for right now, it's time for -
And after you're done reading all those fine Twitterings, how about you make the mothership - www.411mania.com, if you're not hip - YOUR official homepage?
Onto making the donuts.
Ain't that beautiful?
Seriously.
Isn't that just a wonderful job? New Line marketing people, give yourself a raise and take the day off. That is a theatrical one-sheet of which you can be proud.
There was also a picture released of Freddy dragging his claws along a wall, shrouded in darkness. It's basically blacked out, so what's there to do?
Luckily for you, faithful readers, I'm a Farker. With full credit given to a Mr. jakevol2, here you go -
Hey, it's better than pure blackness, fuck off. I'm doing what I can for you.
I do hear the question already bubbling to the surface in your minds, though - what do I think about there being a remake of this horror classic in the first place, you're wondering?
At first, I was totally against it. Totally at odds with my typical cool, calm, measured reasoning self, I instead flew off the handle and made a snap judgment that this was going to be completely and totally worthless.
Then they cast Jackie Earle Haley.
Hmm.
Very interesting.
Already robbed of one Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his revelatory performance as Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children and on my own personal shortlist thus far for a second nomination in the category for his brilliant turn as Rorschach in Watchmen, Jackie Earle Haley might just be the one actor that comes to mind who actually could turn the exceedingly difficult trick of both 1) doing justice to Robert Englund's original creation and 2) taking his portrayal in a wonderfully frightening new direction.
Screw that Crispin Glover fanboy nonsense. It's old, it's tired, take it behind the barn and shoot it. And while you're there, go ahead and plug some hot lead into your rampant Sam Raimi fetishes so I don't have to keep reading hate mail about how Jumpscare: The Movie was the "best horror fielm of the yaer!!!111"
But I digress.
Then the producers promised to take Freddy back to his original child murdering AND molesting roots.
Now I'm interested, oh yes I am.
Largely forgotten when New Line, fully acknowledging their own self-dubbed status as "The House That Freddy Built," turned a warped pedophile killer into Henny Youngman as a burn victim, Freddy is not a nice man. He's hideous. While Wes Craven did remove Freddy's true reasons for loving the little girls from his final script due to the ridiculous child molestation witch hunts of the 1980s, that's how Craven really wanted his killer. Fuck the PTA brigade in their mommy mobiles, let's have a Freddy as originally envisioned...and that's what we've been promised. With that in mind and the talents of Jackie Earle Haley in the driver's seat, I can't wait.
Plus in the finished film the news articles Nancy's mom shows Nancy during the big exposition scene have Krueger as a kiddie toucher as well, it's just that nobody noticed.
But again, I digress.
From that measured optimism (hey, it is Platinum Dunes, after all) to the shores of ecstasy, it seems we're getting close to October.
To Halloween.
And you know what that means, children.
If it's Halloween...it must be Saw.
Saw VI, to be precise. And while I'm still unsure if I'm going to be tuning in for the big teaser trailer Comic Con reveal on the principle of not wanting to ruin anything and not trusting trailer editors at all...well, you readers saw that official motion poster, correct? As displayed here on the majestic 411Mania.com?
Tons of people walking across a square, the now classically familiar drones of Charlie Clouser's "Hello Zepp" coming through your speakers, until they form the outline of Jigsaw.
We're already in very cool territory here.
And then you see the words that certainly hardened my nipples as I looked at them and should've done the same for you...
"His Disease Is Spreading..."
Ohhhhhhh. The concept of Jigsaw being just as much of a cancer as that which killed him (well, Jeff Reinhart struck the official killing blow, but the dude was about to keel over as it was)?
I LOVE this. The idea that Saw VI is going to fully delve into this idea?
October, get here already.
Now.
After I see (500) Days of Summer, of course. That won't be out in October, so if there's a time shift, I'll have to wait for the Blu-Ray. Wouldn't be cool.
And finally, speaking of things that are not cool? This trailer -
So we've got a pretty well-worn story here - no biggie, classic movies have been made from very obvious tales. A wife thinks her husband's dead and takes up with her brother-in-law only to discover her husband's not actually dead - what do you do then? Okay. That's fine. I was with this trailer through the first half - nice dialogue, decent acting, I like Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal as actors, etc. I didn't even mind the use of The Fray.
Honest.
So why in the blue Hell are you going to give away to audiences what appears to be the end of the film? I acknowledge that there are people out there who for some asinine reason actually enjoy knowing every little thing that's going on before they see a movie - see the grosses for What Lies Beneath for more information - but this is just absurd. We have traveled through the first act, second act, and third act of this movie, totally for free. Does Lionsgate think that "oooh, who does she choose and did Tobey Maguire eat people in Iraq?" was enough to get people in the door for their little piece of Oscarbait?
Well, friends. We've gone from good marketing to great marketing all the way to absolutely horrid marketing. Narrative threads are fun.
