Special Series · The Art of the Tease(rs)
Mortal Kombat (1995)
I have a serious problem with movie trailers lately. It seems like nearly every preview that’s released is about 2:30 minutes long and gives away almost every aspect of the movie, acting more like a CliffsNotes version of the movie being advertised rather than something to entice an audience into coming back and seeing the full product.
In this day and age where all aspects of a movie are fairly well known before an inch of footage is seen, the subtlety of a well-crafted “teaser” trailer is totally gone…and I miss it…I miss it a lot. So I decided to go back to some of the teaser trailers I fondly remember and, in a way, reintroduce them. Whether the actual movie was good or bad is neither here nor there…but pay attention to how each of these teasers work in their own special way to grab the attention of movie-goers.
The One-Sheet
Lobby Card
Plot: Guided by the thunder god Rayden, martial artist Liu Kang, movie star Johnny Cage and special forces officer Sonya Blade travel to a mysterious island tournament where they must fight the sorcerer Shang Tsung and his Outworld warriors for the fate of Earth.
Released: August 18, 1995
Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring: Linden Ashby, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Robin Shou, Bridgette Wilson, Talisa Soto, Christopher Lambert
Studio: New Line Cinema
Box office: $70.5 million domestic, $122.2 million worldwide
Trivia:
- Mortal Kombat opened at number one in August 1995 with about $23.3 million.
- The TVT Records soundtrack album was certified platinum by the RIAA on January 11, 1996, less than five months after the movie opened.
The Taglines
Nothing in this world has prepared you for this.
Why It Works
If you were a teenage boy that attended even one sleepover between 1992 and 1995, chances are you played Mortal Kombat. I remember playing the Sega video game with friends on a Friday night into the wee hours of the morning, sleeping for a bit, then waking up and doing it all over again. So when a big-screen adaptation of the popular game was slated for release in the summer of 1995, it was a given that we’d line up to see it. Though the finished product was pretty lame, it stirs up better memories of my youth and friends that I haven’t forgotten about. This is probably more of a full-fledged trailer but I’m including it here because it’s edited together like a teaser. I still have the soundtrack on cassette and always liked the final 30 seconds of the preview when the characters are introduced and the electronic head-throbbing music kicks in.
Written by Joe Botten
Joe Botten is The MN Movie Man, a Twin Cities film critic writing spoiler-free reviews since 2012. He also writes for Loud and Clear Reviews, a Rotten Tomatoes approved site. Find him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
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