Best Horror Trailers!

The theatrical trailer for Carpenter's Prince of Darkness is probably my fave.

Also I love The Thing one (it's on the DVD), where it's just that big white screen and all you hear that fucking eery crackling of the radio message in the background. Plus the other Thing trailer which is like a compendium of the movie's best moments, like the doorknob turning right to left, and the man-Thing-with-half-formed-hand-claw slowly opening his mouth to scream.

The Thing trailer is cool, I also liked the Eight Legged Freaks trailer.

I seem to remember the trailers for "Aliens" and "Lifeforce" being great.

Indeed they were. "Lifeforce" had Steve Railsback's great line, "She's destroyed worlds!" And the initial "Aliens" trailer (which used the creepy wailing with pulsing tempo from the original "Alien" trailer) was great stuff -- it actually looked as great as it ended up being.

My pick is for the original trailer for "Bram Stoker's Dracula." The early one with the original music (composed just for the trailer) and Hopkins reading from the "Big Book of Vampires." (Ending with him ominously staring into the camera saying, "Make no mistake...he must be stopped.")

Another would be the teaser trailer for "Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" which featured a figure standing by a pristine lake, with melancholy guitar strumming, looking like something medieval. The voiceover says something about legends never dying, it looks like we're in for some sword & sorcery epic. The blade of a silver chainsaw rises vertically from the waters, lifted by a female "Lady of the Lake" hand. And in pure "Excalibur" fashion, she tosses the chainsaw into the waiting grip of the figure at the water's edge, as lightning strikes it and the figure revs it up, turning to attack US ... we see that it's Leatherface, looking old-school and ready to grind the nearest human into hamburger.

A GREAT trailer.

The Signs trailer(s) gave me goosebumps and actually scared me. When was the last time you were scared by a trailer?

Swimfan.

- THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS - "Did you ever think, when the hearse goes by, that someday you're going to die" ( or something like that )

- TORSO - torso, toRSO, TORSO !!!

- BEYOND THE DOOR - "Whooo rrrRRRR you"

"Swimfan" ?

You have no idea Danny. Truly hideous -- if very pretty indeed to look at (and I don't mean Erica Christiansen, who strikes me as being Julia Stiles in a fat suit)

Review forthcoming in Frightfest write-up...

I simply meant that the very existence of the trailer scared me, not that the film itself looks scary. Fatal Attraction in trunks

I agree that "Swimfan@" is a great trailer, b/c it saves you the trouble of actually having to see the movie. Seriously, every plot point is there--the setup, the seduction, the stalking, the climax, and all the incidental "suspense" builders. Condensed the entire movie into a 3 minute chunk, and saved me a ticket-price.

Just kidding. I wouldn't see Swimfan@ if I got a solid gold ticket stub for it.

Well, maybe.

Anyway, one of my favorite horror trailers has to be the "Jason Takes Manhattan" teaser. Not a fan of the movie, but showing a guy looking out over the NY skyline at night, the prancing strains of Sinatra's "New York New York" in the background, you think you're seeing one kind of trailer, and then he turns around, and it's Jason. Classic.

Eight Legged Freaks was great too: "Do you hate spiders? Do you Really Hate Spiders? Well...

THEY DON'T LIKE YOU EITHER."

NOTHING CAN PREPARE YOU FOR...

"Sports Enthusiast"

LIVE IN FEAR OF...

"Music Appreciation"

SCREAM I TERROR AT...

"Plane Spotting"

YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE HORROR OF...

"Dog Lover" (woah, actually, on second thoughts that one could be a sicko doozy!)

I like my actresses with a little more meat on their bones. Not a fan of "anorexic chic." And besides "fat" in hollywood seems to be a synonym for "normal weight."

Maybe that's why I'm such a huge Kathryn Heigl fan...and Jennifer Connelly...and Erica Christiansen...and Nell Carter...

I've said too much.

The Fly remake trailer was pretty good IIRC. Goldblum emerging from the pod in that creepy way of his, with all that mist around.

..Rosie O Donnell

Oh baby. Oh mama. Don't tease me, strax. wink

I'm glad someone is adding "@" at the end "Swimfan"...what the hell is that supposed to mean anyway? Swimfan at what? "Swimfan@"...I'm so there.

Inspector nailed some good trailers for sure. 'Leatherface' is fantastic. The thing is this: Hollywood makes better trailers than the actual films they promote so a lot of trailers I say I like are from God-awful films ('Judge Dredd' got me sooooo stoked - I think I cried when I saw the actual film).

All I can think of right now, as a great trailer, (I've been sitting for HOURS in front of my TV prepping a 'Blade 2' DVD review for you readers) is the 'In the Mouth of Madness' trailer. With that slow build up of his past films ('Halloween, 'Starman', and 'Christine') then something about it being "the '90s" and Carpenter has returned. It got me all tingly. I remember I taped it off E! and watched it over and over.

The trailers and teasers are always better than the films. You just can't beat that sense of anticipation.

The Inspector mentioned a couple of my favorites - the Bram Stoker's Dracula teaser is a classic and Leatherface is a blast too (I just picked up a used VHS copy of the Robert Englund Phantom of the Opera that has that teaser on it).

Some of my own favorites would be the previews to almost any early '80s slasher movie - My Bloody Valentine being the one that scared me the most, although I can hardly remember any details of it by now.

Another favorite is the teaser for the Anthony Hopkins thriller Magic about a ventriloquist who may be insane (or is the doll alive?). The teaser for that (and the TV spots) had the doll talking to the camera saying some creepy rhyme that began "Abracadabra, I sit on his knee..." and ended with something like "Hocus Pocus, now he's dead" but I forget the rest of it.

I thought the previews for Jacob's Ladder were incredible with its glimpses of Jacob's visions and usually ending with the scene in the hospital where Jacob says "I'm not dead!". Based on the previews I thought it was going to be the most kick-ass horror movie ever (and it ended up being pretty darn good).

Someone already mentioned The Beast Within and I have to second that.

And I just picked up The Fog on disc and I had never seen the teaser spots for it which are very cool ("What in the living Hell is out there?").

As far as recent films, I thought the Blair Witch and Hannibal spots were great.

And how about two of the best trailers of all time - Hitchcock's droll trailers for Psycho and The Birds?