Trailer Review: CATFISH

Before you read, just know that this review has a spoiler for the movie District 9.

"Just True"

In recent years the docu-style of filmmaking has returned with movies like Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, District 9, and in theaters now, The Last Exorcism. Catfish is the next installment in that style of filmmaking. The trailer does a good job at establishing this hapless guy that we are following who is having an online relationship with a girl whose voice, we think we hear and pictures from her Facebook, that we hope are also her.

After the swooning and dirty text messages, his friends who are documenting this series of events, and him decide to drive up to her farm in Michigan and once they get out of the car, the trailer shifts and I'm happy and kinda annoyed at the same time.

Annoyed

"The Final Forty Minutes of this Film will take you on an emotional roller-coaster ride that you won't be able to shake for days". - Chris BumBray Joblo.com

While this quote excited me when I first saw this trailer, it soon made me begin ask; are the last forty minutes of this film all I'm really going to be waiting for? Well... Yes! I think by adding quotes like these to trailers, the advertisement is literally telling me when things will get interesting in the movie! I think it sabotages the film in that your not letting the audience go on this journey and be surprised. I just wish the trailer did something with its already uneasy images to give it that same shift in tone. Instead it lazily relies on a quote.

Take a look at the trailer for District 9. Everyone I talked to said to me that it looked like another variation of a run-of-the-mill "alien invasion" movie; i.e. Independence Day. When in fact, sitting in the theater, you were rudely awakened. Discovering that the movie was more about a man who on the day of his promotion is infected in a way that would change his life forever and question his own treatment of the aliens.

Of course punch words like; "AMAZING", "OUT OF THIS WORLD", and "POWERFUL", were thrown around, as well they should be. But no where did it say in the trailer; "Just fucking wait till you see a scene where (SPOILER WARNING) they unwrap his hand and its an alien hand!, CRAZY!"

I just think for the sake of promotion, quotes like these should be chosen more carefully.

Also, while it won't deter my enjoyment of the movie, I highly question this film's validity in being "Just True". I don't know if any of you have seen the movie The Strangers, but that film was also based on a true story. However, it was later revealed that using that tagline, and I do think its more of a tagline now, was purely for advertisement. Although events depicted in the movie unfortunately do happen. The movie was just a look into those happenings. Which I think is what is happening in Catfish.

Happy

Aside from all that I will be definitely going to see Catfish. From the trailer alone I'm hooked. Get it? YucK YucK! It starts off as one thing, then shifts gears very quickly into something that we know is just bad. I like to see movies like this where the images are not all that clear, there is grain, you see people holding the camera; I just think it gives the movie more of a sense of realism and It will help establish the situation and actions more so.

Also with David Fincher's The Social Network coming to theaters a few weeks later, this movie I hope will crack open some interesting debate about social networking sites and meeting people over the internet.

As always my final review will be when the credits roll and the house lights go up!

Dueces!
StuntmanBob