10 Movie Trailers That Totally Trolled Audiences

6. Hereditary

The trailers for Ari Aster's masterful horror film Hereditary did a remarkable job of skirting around the film's real plot while still giving viewers a fair impression of its tone and themes.

The trailers focused on protagonist Annie (Toni Collette) grieving for her recently deceased mother, with the implication being that the mother would return as a malevolent paranormal presence throughout the film.

But as it turns out, this was in order to distract from the fact that Annie's daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), who was featured extensively in the trailers, is brutally killed in a car accident barely 30 minutes into the movie.

Footage of her funeral from the film was re-purposed in the trailers with the implication that it was that of Annie's mother, and by featuring a disproportionate amount of footage of Charlie in the trailers, A24 expertly concealed one of the most brilliantly upsetting plot twists in recent memory.

The trailers also made zero references to the fact that the primary antagonistic force is actually a coven rather than a ghost, and while more casual-skewing audiences found Hereditary too slow and "arty", for genre aficionados its array of surprises were most certainly pleasant.

Given the jaw-dropping impact of Charlie's shocking death, many appreciated being so thoroughly manipulated.