This week, we bring you the laziest trailers in cinema history. With one bright exception, we’ve come to what is basically the elephant graveyard of Hollywood.
“Everything the light touches is Joy.”
“What about that shadowy place?”
“That is Daddy’s Home. You must never go there.”
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
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Genre: Horror
Director: Gregory Plotkin
Stars: Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George
Release date: October 23
From the quality of the trailer’s voiceover it’s clear that The Ghost Dimension will be the final installment of Paranormal Activity due to lack of funds. Sticking with same basic elements of the Paranormal Activity series, this last installment takes it to the next meta level by having a family film filming ghosts with a special camera that mysteriously appeared in their up-until-now-unhaunted house. Possessed children, exorcists, and Poltergeist-like other dimensions all make an appearance. The trailer boasts that “Nothing you’ve experienced can prepare you for the final chapter,” but if you’ve seen any of the other Paranormal Activity movies, you’re definitely ready.
Freaks of Nature
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Genre: Comedy, Horror
Director: Robbie Pickering
Stars: Ed Westwick, Keegan-Michael Key, Patton Oswalt, Vanessa Hudgens,
Release date: October 30
What else could go wrong in a town where vampires and zombies are close to outnumbering humans? Aliens, apparently. In a movie that looks like it was made 10 years ago, a surprisingly impressive cast deals with the chaos that ensues in a town that seems to be built on the hellmouth from Buffy. Unfortunately, appearances by Patton Oswalt and Keegan-Michael Key won’t make up for the jokes that were old back when Scary Movie first came out. It’s clear that Freaks of Nature wants to be clever and ironic, but the trailer doesn’t give much hope for either of those.
Condemned
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Genre: Horror
Director: Eli Morgan Gesner
Stars: Dylan Penn, Michel Gill, Lydia Hearst
Release date: November 13
Sean Penn’s daughter Dylan makes her big screen debut in this contagious horror flick. Wannabe punk squatters in a Lower East Side tenement are trapped in the building as a mysteriously disgusting disease ravages the occupants. For some reason, Condemned comes out two weeks after Halloween. Penn’s stiff facial features remain unmoved even as she is chased through the building by her insane, boil-covered housemates. This movie will keep you from replying to that Craigslist ad for a too-good-to-be-true room in lower Manhattan, if only out because of the fear that you might end up living with someone who says things like, “That was so punk rock!”
Joy
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Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Director: David O. Russell
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro
Release date: December 25
The one shining beacon in the otherwise horrifying garbage pile of this week’s movies is the new Joy trailer. We’re pumped for J. Law’s return from the dystopian future to the indie dramas that made her a star. Lawrence is back working with David O. Russell, who directed Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustler. She stars as Joy, a woman trying to pull herself out of the swamp that is her family by starting her own business. We see her go from high school, to college, to struggling small business woman to high-powered entrepreneur all in the space of two minutes. With performances by Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper among others, Joy premieres on Christmas Day, just in time to make you feel better about your own family.
Jane Got a Gun
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Genre: Action, Drama, Western
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Stars: Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Rodrigo Santoro
Release date: February 2016
Was there a meeting somewhere in Hollywood where all the producers decided that Westerns were going to make a comeback? Because every single one of the people responsible for the resurgence of westerns needs to be fired. Natalie Portman stars as Jane, a woman who seeks help from an ex-lover when her current husband is in trouble and later becomes a violent badass when her daughter is taken. Ewan McGregor is nearly unrecognizable beneath the layers of spray tan and eyebrow pencil that were liberally applied to his face. With the same shots of horses running through the desert as every other movie that came before it, we’re not too hyped to watch Portman run around in petticoats for two hours.
Daddy’s Home
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Genre: Comedy
Director: Sean Anders, John Morris
Stars: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini
Release date: December 25
Daddy’s Home might be the laziest movie ever made that somehow needed two directors. Will Ferrell stars as the timid and stable step-dad who must compete with Mark Wahlberg, the rock and roll biological dad who has returned from wherever it is that deadbeat dads go. Inexplicably using his Mugatu voice, Ferrell plays the most stereotypically white dad character since Dave Chapelle’s parody of Wife Swap. Mark Wahlberg’s performance is convincing only because he is playing himself. Everything that your uncle would think was cool is featured in the trailer: skateboards, GoPro cameras, the Lakers. Will Ferrell, how dare you? Please, please, PLEASE go back to making movies about every sport ever. We’re still waiting on that movie about Olympic Curling.
