20 Most Horribly Misleading Movie Titles
Judging a book by its cover is often a particularly stupid thing to do.
Everyone knows you shouldnt put the cart before the horse, judge books by their covers or feed Gremlins after midnight. And yet, the human animal continues to do all of these things because its in our very nature.
With films, were unable to prevent ourselves from spoiling the moviegoing experience before we set foot in the cinema. Why? Because even if trailers, previews, posters, TV spots have all been carefully avoided, theres still one piece of marketing you fundamentally cannot avoid: the title.
Often chosen for its ability to summarise the story, or a neat phrase uttered by a character, the single most primal rule is that it really needs to be catchy and sellable. And this one tidbit inevitably forms the major basis for all of our assumptions about a movie. Sharknado was always going to be about Sharks, right? And there was no way Snakes On A Plane was going to be a literary drama. Fight Club? Expect a punch-up.
Its all in the name.
Or is it? While the above examples are stellar representations of What You See Is What You Get film marketing, theres another category of movie title - an entirely different sneaky beast. The title appears to do the same job, and it even has a cheeky ring to it, but its only when the lights go down and the film starts that you realise that Tyrannosaur really isn't a Jurassic Park spinoff...