Over the past few days, several Very Important Trailers and a few Less Important Trailers dropped; a couple even dropped this weekend, and I missed them because I was flying through the friendly skies and arguing with my seat mate about America, as one does on 13-hour international flights. Let’s catch up together, shall we?
Insidious: Chapter 3 is a prequel set before the haunting of the Lambert family that we all know and love, and looks scary as shit. It’s got everything a good horror film needs: A psychic old lady; a supernatural entity hell-bent on ruining everybody’s lives; a young, pretty girl destroyed from the inside out; Dermot Mulroney. The trailer’s also got some really helpful life tips. For instance, if you’ve ever wondered, “Should I take a quick peep at the corpse of the guy who just jumped out my window?” the answer is no.
The trail of the tape
Title: Insidious: Chapter 3
Director: Leigh Whannell
Screenwriter: Leigh Whannell
Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, Lin Shaye
Release date: June 5, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “It’s feeding on her soul.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab: I can’t.
Ah, yes, Barely Lethal, the Hailee-Steinfeld-plays-a-teen-assassin comedy. I believe Charles put it best when he wrote, “Solid wordplay, scriptwriter John D’Arco, but ick.” Steinfeld stars as a special-ops agent who “never knew her own parents,” and only knew “Prescott, a special school for orphans where they teach girls to kill.” Thanks, Obama. When she gets a glimpse of what she’s missing (bopping around in front of a large window), she fakes her own death and enrolls in a suburban high school, where everybody thinks she’s lame because she dresses like a drunk Prince and doesn’t know that assemblies suck. Much like Hailee, I fear Barely Lethal has no idea what it’s doing; this trailer makes me very uncomfortable, like I’ve just walked into school wearing a purple head poof and my own braids wrapped around my forehead.
The trail of the tape
Title: Barely Lethal
Director: Kyle Newman
Screenwriter: John D’Arco
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Sophie Turner, Jaime King, Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Alba
Release date: April 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “I’m viral?” “Like HPV.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
Have I ever wanted to see a movie more than I’ve wanted to see Ex Machina? No, no I have not. The film—about a programmer and a CEO who are ostensibly testing an artificial intelligence, but really, she’s testing them!!—looks fascinating and creepy and wonderful, and it’s written and directed by 28 Days Later’s Alex Garland, and it premiered to really positive reviews at SXSW, and if it’s not as amazing as it looks I am going to be so upset that I build a salty, murderous AI just for FUN.
The trail of the tape
Title: Ex Machina
Director: Alex Garland
Screenwriters: Alex Garland
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson
Release date: April 10, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “Does Ava actually like you, or is she just pretending to like you?”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
About Elly was first released in 2009, but never reached the U.S.; six years later, it’s finally premiering here. Directed by A Separation’s Asghar Farhadi, it looks like an incredible psychodrama—mysterious, disturbing, unpredictable. It follows a group of friends who reunite by the Caspian Sea for a weekend, one of whom brings her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, Elly, along to be set up with a recently divorced member of the group. Elly soon disappears, and nobody knows why, and I’m scared and never going on a weekend getaway ever again.
The trail of the tape
Title: About Elly
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Screenwriters: Asghar Farhadi, Azad Jafarian
Cast: Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Merila Zare’i
Release date: April 8, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “Have you met Elly? To know her is to love her.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
Ready for more creepy shit? From the dudes behind Oculus, here’s Before I Wake, another horror movie about a kid who has some #problems. This time, the kid is Cody, a very polite young boy who has dreams about butterflies that come true and also nightmares about dead people pulling him under the bed that come true. Win some, lose some. Kate Bosworth stars as his foster mom, who very explicitly lays out the entire plot for us here in one awkward, expository swoop. Thanks, Kate!
The trail of the tape
Title: Before I Wake
Director: Mike Flanagan
Screenwriters: Jeff Howard, Mike Flanagan
Cast: Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane, Scottie Thompson, Annabeth Gish, Jacob Tremblay
Release date: May 8, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “Something’s not right. I have to find out more about Cody’s dreams.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
