How soon is too soon for spoilers?
It's hard to keep the lid on plot details of any film with instant reactions available on Twitter and spreading rapidly. You can try to avoid reading reviews and recaps, but what about the times that a film's marketing campaign gives away too much? It's frustrating to see any new trailer that foretells too much plot, but is it okay to be open with story beats if we've already had time to experience the film?
Recently, 10 Cloverfield Lane has been among the best at teasing us with what it had in store. It's very title alone suggests something more than meets the eye, but it's minimal trailers and posters never dipped more than a toe into the plot elements or scares in this pop-up mini-event movie. Announcing its presence a mere two months before release and never revealing much more was a bold and brave marketing risk that hopefully more studios will be willing to take in the future, for it paid off in spades for the viewing experience.
Less elusive, but still similarly slim on the plot, The Witch came out in February after a year on the festival circuit and a solid block of enticing pre-release materials. General audiences were only promised a chilling horror and remained unspoiled about how it would conclude. The film is getting another push this weekend (to 666 theatres) in the hopes of passing Ex Machina as distributor a24's highest grosser. If you haven't seen it yet, you're missing one of the best of the year thus far!
But to coincide with 10 Cloverfield Lane's international rollout and this final expansion for The Witch, there are a new poster and trailer that kick the bucket into full spoiler territory. If you haven't seen either yet and want to remain unspoiled, stop right here. MAJOR SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP...
The international poster shows in no uncertain terms that this Cloverfield installment does indeed take place during an alien invasion. This element was kept completely out of the American mystery box marketing and made for a fun third act reveal moments before the credits rolled. International audiences being sold the film on an image like this are being promised a different experience than what the film delivers - the sci-fi twist was truly just a coda on a film driven moreso by intimate thrills and slow-built tension. Not to mention the miss out on the rare joy of not knowing every story beat the way stateside audiences got to enjoy this film!
It also is kind of a buzzkill for the film's most enjoyable component: Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character arc. She doesn't enter the film as a woman equipped to single-handedly take on an alien spaceship, but slowly becomes a full-on action hero after the twists and turns in the bunker with the sinister John Goodman. As she's backed further and further into a corner she comes out swinging, which makes the alien confrontation twist all the more rewarding and thrilling. Seeing this image to spoil the journey's endpoint has to dampen some of the impact of Winstead's ace performance.
But if narrative impact is lessened for 10 Cloverfield Lane by the above poster, then this rerelease trailer for The Witch takes it to a whole other level.
In short order, the trailer delivers the most grisly and disturbing images from the film completely free of context - most of the footage from the film's third act, to boot. It's a barrage of blood and the most memorable scares that still misses the film's bone-chilling nature. One wonders if the gruesomeness is to curb the unfair reputation of "pretentious and boring" that The Witch has received. This trailer isn't quite a misdirection, but there is something essential in the film's slow build to violence that feels compromised.
However, if these marketing materials ruin the experience for the uninitiated, they've definitely renewed interest in this already sold fan. Perhaps this weekend's light release schedule makes for the perfect chance for a revisit.
Do you think this marketing to Too Spoilery, Too Soon? How long should we try to preserve such thrills for new audiences?