10 Movie Trailers That Don't Spoil ANYTHING
4. The Shining
No one was prepared for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining.
That's not an exaggeration. No one was prepared for this masterful horror because the trailer barely shows anything. It didn't divulge the plot, show the characters, or explain what "the shining" is.
The teaser begins with a shot of an elevator. As a scrolling text informs viewers that this teaser is for Kubrick's latest film, the music gradually becomes eerier, making us feeling more unnerved as time goes on.
At the end, a tsunami of blood gushes out of the elevator in slow-motion, filling the corridor up until the furniture is swimming around the room. As blood slathers across the camera, tinting the screen in a goopy scarlet colour, you can't help feeling unsettled. Even though this clip gives nothing away, it left an impression, encouraging film fans to check out the visceral horror flick.
Because censors don't allow blood to appear in green-band trailers, Kubrick convinced the MPAA that the red liquid in this teaser was "rusty water". Thankfully, the Censor Board believed him (for some reason), which allowed him to create one of the greatest trailers of all time.