10 Dumb Movie Trailers That Ruined The Film's Ending

Are movie trailers spoiling films before we've even had the chance to see them? The debate over how much detail should be revealed prior to a film's release has never seemed more relevant than it does in the age of the franchise, when efforts to appease investors and compete with rival studios often lead to every big moment in a film (spoiler or otherwise) appearing in the trailer. 

The truth of the matter, however, is that this is not a new practice.

The problem lies in the fact that directors have historically had little control over the content of trailers, which are cut by marketing departments whose decisions are based on financial gain rather than tact. Their job is to convince as many people as they possibly can to buy a ticket to see the movie, and if they want the big numbers they are forced to ignore the pleas of discerning cinephiles and pander to the masses.

In defending the spoilerific trailer for his Hitchockian thriller What Lies Beneath, veteran director Robert Zemeckis pointed his finger at market research, which, according to him, suggested that the casual film fan really wants to know every little thing about a movie before they pay to go and see it.

Even if this argument holds some weight from a studio perspective, there really can be no excuse for committing the cardinal sin of trailer making - revealing the ending. 

From found-footage horrors to epic natural disaster movies, here are 10 majorly dumb trailers that spoiled the end of the film...

An English language remake of critically acclaimed Spanish found-footage horror REC, Quarantine follows a TV reporter assigned to a story about local firefighters.

After a brief tour of the station, the crew are called out to an apartment building where the other local authorities are trying to rescue a sick woman. When that woman turns out to be infected with a strange virus, however, the building is - you guessed it - quarantined, trapping the young journalist inside a huge house of horrors.

What the original did was prove that there was life left in the found-footage sub-genre of horror if done correctly, though John Erick Dowdle's re-imagining lacked a lot of the qualities that Spanish counterparts Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza brought to their film, namely the element of surprise.

It doesn't take an expert to tell you that horror films rely on suspense, though it's hard to get behind a character you already know is done for.

Quarantine's trailer starts well enough, including all the claustrophobia and violence you would expect from a zombie movie set entirely in one building, though it ruins the film completely by ending with protagonist Angela being dragged off helplessly into the darkness.