Solo trailer review - Tucker and Dale vs. evil (2011)

Tucker and Dale vs. evil, 2011, is a red band Canadian comedy horror directed by Eli Craig. 

What happened in the trailer? 
In the 2 and a half minute trailer, a montage of rhythmic short clips illustrates the hilarious unfortunate events that Tucker and Dale get themselves into when doing up their holiday home on vacation. The opening sequence to the trailer is an aerial shot of a group of friends driving to their destination; a typical convention in horror films.


To begin the trailer, the characters are established through point of view shots and close ups, representing each character as a stereotypical person. These stereotypes include; the sexualised, blonde female victim, the male hero, the final girl and the two psycho killers.

When the final girl stereotype is seen undressing to go skinny dipping, the two unfortunate characters seen as the psycho killers are coincidentally in a boat near by, portrayed as deviant men, spying on her. Seeing her fall into the water and knocking herself unconscious, the men save her from drowning but are only seen as kidnapping her from the eyes of her friends.

For the duration of the trailer, the events that occur are jaw dropping for the audience by the classic stereotypical horror conventions being played with and turned into a laughing stock by the overly anxious college kids that make the two softest characters appear like serial killers.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well? 
When focusing on the most inspiring features within the trailer that I feel I would like to include in my own would be; the blunt, dry humour, the music, the great use of cinematography, the awkward silences and the text font. 

If I were to create a comedy horror, I feel as if I would follow the dry humour techniques such as the awkward silences to give the audience time to reflect on the action on screen whilst still including humour. At the beginning of the trailer, the music playing is similar to those in conventional horror trailers, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. As the trailer goes on and Tucker and Dale's misfortunes begin, the music either stops or alters to contrapuntal music. Alternating the music meant that the trailer adjusted to the action on screen and worked well to evoke the appropriate emotions. 

 The font used at the end of the trailer to inform the audience with more information is a bold sans serif font written in red. Using this battered effect font connotes the horror genre whilst additionally using a colour such as red to connote danger, evil and death which are all themes of the film. 

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing? 
When focusing on the negative aspects within the trailer and features that I would choose not to include in my own, these include; the repetition of fade to blacks, the shortage of breaks for text and the fact that a lot of the best bits from the film have already been shown. 

The editing technique of fade to black is a popular transition in this trailer and due to being used a lot, I felt it slowed down the action. Due to this, I feel that in my trailer, I will take this into consideration and be diverse with the editing techniques and include multiple different effects. 

Having no breaks during the trailer for text means that more footage from the film has to be shown. Showing all of the funny scenes  from the film means that when watching the film, lots of the more funny scenes have already been seen and will be less funny when watching. If I were to do this in my trailer, I will make sure that I keep a lot of the best scenes until the film and not give everything away. 

Personal rating? Why did i give that mark?
Personally, I would rate this trailer a 9/10 due to the intelligence that has gone into the cinematography, the editing, the music, the awkward silences and the general narrative of the trailer.