MovieChat Forums > Abigail (2024) Discussion > Another fun plot twist completely ruined...

Another fun plot twist completely ruined by the trailer

posted 23 days ago by DickusBiggus (205)
6 replies | jump to latest

I avoid trailers as the plague precisely because of that, for some reason they felt compelled to take away any fun the movie might have and give the entire movie, plot twist include, in those 2 minutes.

Really feels ridiculous how the movie expend like 50 minutes building suspend just to deliver something we already saw in the trailer.

This shit really baffles me, who make those decisions? Has the director no say in what can be shown in the trailer? How about the producers? How a producer could think that is a good idea?

Look I get it a movie about a little ballerina vampire is more compelling than a movie about a kidnapping and can bring more audience to theater, so they want to promote that, ¿but then why take 50 minutes of movie pretending we don't know who is killing those people and what is happening? And when the big revealing which could have been fun finally happen, end up been kinda boring because we are waiting for that the entire time.

If you want to promote your vampire movie give us the god-damn vampire from the beginning no need to build "suspense" and if you want to expend 50 minutes building suspend for a reveal then just don't give the plot twist in the trailer, simple, I don't think this is quantum physics

[–] BlackChristmas (611) 23 days ago

You can't blame the marketing team really. How could they have marketed it without revealing the vampire aspect? A group of people kidnap a ballerina and demand money... and what else? That doesn't sound too enticing. Some of the people who would go see that would probably be annoyed when it becomes a vampire movie, whilst others who would watch a vampire horror movie may not have went to see it because it seemed some minimalist crime-thriller.

I think what happened is this was a 'Dracula's Daughter' project that morphed into 'Abducting Abigail' and then 'Abigail'. That during some point of production they decided to go for a From Dusk Till Dawn type twist... only for the marketing team to say, ya fucking bozos we need this to make money! So they leant on the vampire aspect during marketing to appeal to the horror crowd.

This shit really baffles me, who make those decisions? Has the director no say in what can be shown in the trailer? How about the producers? How a producer could think that is a good idea?

These directors? Not a chance they have control of the marketing. Maybe if you're Christopher Nolan! The producers just want money and likely betted on trying to lure in the horror crowd to be the more profitable bet.

Personally I didn't find the buildup to be too long.

[–] DickusBiggus (205) 23 days ago

No need to sell the movie as a minimalistic kidnapping movie they got a lot of gore and bloody scenes it still can be sold as a horror with a supernatural creature killing everybody and one innocent girl in the middle of all, the plot could have worked a lot better, I don't think this movie has the potential to become a classic but could have been massive with a proper campaign promotion.

The "twist" is revealed at the 50 minutes and the movie is one hour and forty-fourth minutes long credits include, that is almost half of the movie building a suspense it doesn't exist.

I recently saw the trailer of Predator, one of the most badass creatures in cinema history, and they never show the creature in the trailer and I think Alien was the same.

A lot of vintage trailers from classic movies didn't give the twist, actually dint give you much, so it can be done

The movie need to know what it wants to be and then the people who create the promotion work around that

[–] BlackChristmas (611) 23 days ago

I think it's clear they were struggling to figure out what to do with this one.

It was only officially titled 'Abigail' on 11th January, 3 months before release. Which is very late, how many movies are titleless 12 weeks before coming out? It had it's release date already announced and I remember thinking there was some possible issues and that it would be getting delayed, given how late they were announcing the title and revealing the poster art, trailer and so on.

When it was first announced as being developed it was talked about as a new Universal monster movie, inspired by Dracula's Daughter. I think it's clear they pivoted during production towards hiding the vampirism aspect only for the marketing team to do a 180.

I do agree they could have marketed it without revealing the vampire but hinting that there is a supernatural monster element.

[–] TheArgentinian (6569) 22 days ago

i'm glad i didn't watch the trailer. the twist was shocking to me

[–] 4Freedom (150) 22 days ago

I was hoping that the father vampire was another twist to make up for it. Oh well.

Trailers are the worst part of going to the theatre.

[–] jonnycat (43) 16 days ago

Same here, I never watch trailers.