Jennifer’s Body

Fox is putting a trailer of Jennifer’s Body in front of Bruno this Friday. Great, right? Only problem is it’s not our trailer. It’s kind of a straight horror preview and while we’re sure it’ll appeal to many of you, we wanted to make sure you guys got to see our cut … Lets call it the “filmmaker’s cut”. We think it captures the comedy and scares of the horror films we grew up on — a kind of nostalgia for when horror films were fun. Can’t wait to show you the whole film… In the meantime, here’s the red band trailer we wanted our fans to see.
 
— Karyn Kusama (director), Diablo Cody (writer/executive producer), and Jason Reitman (producer)

I don’t believe I’ve ever known filmmakers to release their own trailer on a viral basis to compete with the studio’s trailer, but I’m certainly happy to help out from my little corner of the internet. Nicola and I were talking last night about how much it sucks to have one’s work misrepresented by the folks responsible for distributing it: this happens in publishing all the time, and it’s not just frustrating, it’s potentially career-damaging. This is not to say that publishing or studio marketing/publicity people are Evil (that would be Jennifer, as you’ll see in the trailer) — rather, that they are often overworked, often under-informed about the work they are tasked with representing, and honestly, sometimes it’s just easier to take the well-worn path. It’s a horror film, don’t confuse people by making them laugh! It’s a science fiction book, put a spaceship on the cover!

Part of that impulse, I imagine, is to try to reach the widest potential audience. I get that impulse, but here’s what I know: you cannot fool people into liking your work, at least not for very long. If you set people’s expectations for pizza and give them peanut butter instead, there is no guarantee they will ever come over for dinner again.

It’s far more effective in the long term to market a work as clearly, as specifically, as possible, so its audience can find it. Sadly, neither New York publishing nor Hollywood studios are working for the long term these days: books and movies have become a volume business, driven by and focused on Amazon pre-orders and first-weekend ticket sales. But when artists put thousands of hours of work into making a project that represents their particular voice and vision — which I think is the case with Jennifer’s Body — it’s miserable to see that vision re-spun into peanut butter. It hurts.

Apart from artist solidarity, I’m also posting this trailer because it’s made me want to see the movie (Hey Fox, their trailer worked!). It looks funny and smart; it also looks like the kind of film that either stands all the teen sex/women in horror film cliches on their heads, or ends up reinforcing them sideways. Given that it’s a Diablo Cody film, I’ll assume that headstands are the order of the day…

This is a red-band trailer and so is totally Not Safe For Work.

Enjoy.