JP Nunez
In my opinion, the best horror trailers are the ones that give us a taste of the scares and atmosphere without telling us much (if anything!) about the plot. They show us just enough to get us interested without spoiling anything, so they’re pretty much the perfect way to market a genre film. Unfortunately, these trailers aren’t quite as common as they should be, but I’m happy to report that the trailer for Raven’s Hollow fits this mold to a tee. Here’s what the film is about:
West Point cadet Edgar Allan Poe and four other cadets on a training exercise in upstate New York are drawn by a gruesome discovery into a forgotten community where they find a township guarding a frightening secret.
Right off the bat, that plot synopsis alone is enough to get me interested. While I’m admittedly not an Edgar Allan Poe fanatic, I’m definitely enough of a fan that his inclusion in this story has me really intrigued. It’s fun to see real-life horror legends as characters in fictional stories, so I’m interested to see what they do with him. Will he be Edgar Allan Poe in name only, or will the movie incorporate anything about the real Poe into his character? We obviously won’t know until we see the film, but I for one am excited to find out.
Then, when we turn to the trailer itself, Raven’s Hollow becomes even more intriguing. While it doesn’t tell us much about the plot, it’s permeated with an atmosphere of dread from beginning to end, so it feels almost like you’re right there with the characters experiencing all of these horrific events yourself. In fact, it’s even creepy when there’s nothing particularly horrific happening, so if the full movie is anything like this, we’re going to be in for one hell of a ride.
Raven’s Hollow will be released on Shudder on September 22.
