Most misleading movie trailers

How many times have you watched a film, muttering 'All the good stuff was in the trailer'? It's annoying, but hardly surprising. The studio bigwigs want you at their film's opening night, and by God they'll do everything they can to make sure you're there — selling their movie with a fast-paced two minutes of snappy dialogue snippets and overblown adrenaline-pumping music.

However, sometimes those marketing bods can get a tiny bit sneakier with their promo clips. We look at film trailers that deliberately misled cinema-goers:

The Road
Anyone who read Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece would have known what to expect from John Hillcoat's fairly faithful screen adaptation. However, if you were only aware of the film through its trailer, you would be excused for thinking 'The Road' was nothing but a gritty 'I Am Legend'. It makes you believe that you're going to be watching an emancipated Viggo Mortensen kicking some serious ass in a post apocalyptic world.

However, the brooding, bleak and serious movie is less 'Mad Max', however, and more miserable Max. Oh, and Charlize Theron doesn't feature as much as the trailer would make you believe.

Cold Creek Manor
2003's 'Cold Creek Manor' is a psychological thriller focusing on a family, which includes Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone, moving into a new house. Said house's previous owner, played by Stephen Dorff, doesn't take too kindly to the new occupants.

Mike Figgis' movie must have been deemed too dull for modern mainstream audiences, so the marketing department made the whole promo feel like a haunted house horror movie. Curtains billow menacingly, creepy shots of the house appear and the trailer tries desperately to make you think you are watching a sequel to 'The Haunting' or something.

Adventureland
"From the director of 'Superbad'!" screams the intro to the trailer before the two-and-a-half-minutes of so-so comedy antics about growing up. Trying to sell your movie like an '80s 'Superbad' makes sense if that is your film. But when your movie is actually a well-observed story about relationships, bolstered by a terrific soundtrack and impeccable performances by Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Ryan Reynolds — call us old-fashioned, but we would tend to focus on that.

The film bombed, and in no small part due to the trailer's muddled attempt to present it as a goofy comedy. Oh, and Bill Hader's screen time is pretty much all in the trailer.

Lost in Translation
Like 'Adventureland', the trailer for 'Lost In Translation' eschews the bittersweet sentiment that runs through the film in favour of watching Bill Murray being all goofy. No bad thing really, but not what the film is about.

They must have learned their lesson. Sofia Coppola's latest film 'Somewhere' has a wonderfully evocative promo, which would have been perfect for 'Lost in Translation'.

Sweeney Todd
About one of the most awkward trailers out there. You have Tim Burton and a Goth-ified Johnny Depp playing the vengeful barber.

Excellent. Audiences sure do love Burton and Depp at their most gloomy and Gothic. Hence, a trailer focusing on Depp looking menacing and handsome. What the trailer somehow failed to mention, aside from an incredibly brief moment that looks like it's a dream sequence, is that the film is a musical. And a croon-fest at that — with most of the film showing the characters in song.

Props then to whoever cut the trailer, as it looks like a quirky spoken word thriller. Why you would agree to make a musical and then try your best to hide it away when you market the film is beyond us.

Bridge to Terabithia
Wow, just wow. You can imagine why fans of the much-loved children's book were furious when the trailer was released. The touching story of a relationship between two kids who occasionally conjure up a fantasy world to take them away from the pains of real life, has, if you believe the trailer, been replaced with a story of two cheeky kids who stumble into a magical fantasy world after getting into some high jinks in a forest.

The voice-over man even intones during a series of fantasy action sequences, 'This winter, when you go looking for adventure, be prepared to find more than you could ever imagine."

What they failed to say was that those sequences take up about twenty minutes and the feel-good fantasy was in fact a touching and tear-jerking drama.

Red Eye
The trailer for 'Red Eye' actually starts out brilliantly. Purposely misleading you into thinking you're watching a Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy comedy — it switches gear, showing that in fact there is more to Murphy's character than meets the eye.

However, by including a digitally altered shot of Murphy with red eyes and constantly reminding you that 'Nightmare on Elm Street' director Wes Craven is involved, they infer that it's a supernatural horror film.

In fact, 'Red Eye' is a serviceable Hitchcockian thriller.

Bug
You have the director of 'The Exorcist' making a film called 'Bug'. The fact that it's largely set in a motel room and based on a serious stage play about insanity and paranoia means very little as far as the trailer is concerned. Instead we get a fast-paced trailer with lots of cuts and disturbing images from a film that they make you think is all about flesh-eating bugs attacking a small town.

It's really, really not.