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Confusing film titles on video
It seems insane to release a movie trailer that refuses to name the freaking movie. Nevertheless when the first Cloverfield (2008) trailers came out they gave no indication of the film’s title and not even a diligent web search could reveal what the damn thing was actually called. Audiences were baffled. The tactic generated the desired amount of buzz but instead of asking “what movie is this?” most viewers were asking “why the hell didn’t they name it?” For awhile fans referred to the film as the “untitled J. J. Abrams project” despite the fact that Abrams neither wrote nor directed it. In the end the producers settled on a fairly meaningless title edging out such other promotional and fake promotional titles as Cheese Slusho and plain old 1-18-08 (the release date of the film).
Now Cloverfield is in theatres alongside a movie called Rambo (2008) which is a direct sequel to Rambo II (1985) and Rambo III (1988). You’d think that this would cause confusion with the first film in the series except that it was called First Blood (1982). Most viewers are simply calling the new one Rambo 4 a title that the filmmakers specifically refused to use.
This is nothing new. Producers have long been saddling their films with confusing titles that hide vital information from potential viewers. Recycled titles are a primary offender. In the weeks leading up to the 2006 Academy Awards the question “Have you seen Crash ?” was frequently met with the question “The new one or the Canadian one?” since David Cronenberg’s sex-filled 1996 Crash was still fresh in our minds. Of course Crash is one of those overly generic titles that has been used for roughly one hundred billion gajillion movies making me long for the days when films had incredibly precise specific and accurate titles like I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958).
Shall we go on? Oh let’s!
• Frightmare (1974) — By the time this British horror flick hit home video there was already a newer movie called Frightmare (1983) on the store shelves. The distributor solved this problem by retitling the 1974 film Frightmare II .
Let me just repeat that. To avoid confusing this movie with a newer completely unrelated film they presented it as a sequel to the film that they didn’t want it to be confused with.
Got it?
• The original Star Wars trilogy — I refuse to call these films “Episodes IV V and VI” despite the best efforts of LucasFilm to retrofit those ridiculous titles onto a trio of modern classics. First of all I prefer to ignore the prequels entirely and that’s easier to do without those roman numerals sitting there mocking me. Secondly when Star Wars first hit theatres in 1977 that’s precisely the title that appeared onscreen. Star Wars . Not Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope . That’s the title they slapped on the re-release of the film just before The Empire Strikes Back (1980) came out. OK maybe George Lucas wants us to use his new title but he also originally intended to call his epic “ The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the ‘Journal of the Whills’: Saga I — Star Wars” and I’m not calling it that either.
• Bruce Lee films — When Bruce’s first kung fu film came to America the distributor intended to change the title from The Big Boss (1971) to The Chinese Connection . Bruce’s second kung fu film was going to be changed from Fist of Fury (1972) to Fists of Fury . (plural). With me so far? Good.
Then somebody screwed up and the titles got switched around. The Chinese Connection got released as Fists of Fury and Fist of Fury got released as The Chinese Connection . Then the old titles got used again leading to all kinds of confusion.
Now Bruce Lee fans have to have a complicated Q & A session with one another before they can be sure they’re talking about the same movie.
• Succubus (a.k.a. Necronomicon ) (1968) — The ads for this early X-rated horror film seemed to assume that you wouldn’t know what a succubus was and included a telephone number so you could phone up the theatre and ask (FYI a succubus is a sexy female demon. They could have just said that in the ads). There’s also a rumour that some newspapers advertised the film without revealing the title forcing potential viewers to call the number just to find out the name of the picture which sounds odd to me.
Nevertheless it happened again decades later. Ken Russell’s Whore (1991) was advertised in stuffier newspapers minus its inflammatory title. In fact some video releases use the alternate title If You’re Afraid to Say It… Just See It .
• The Body Count debacle — We’re all used to recycled movie titles by now but some kind of record was set back in 1998 when three different films all called Body Count got released on home video in the same month. They had different production dates (1995 1997 and 1998) but they all came out on VHS at the same time leading to much hilarity at alphabetically arranged video stores.
“Hmm. Honey I feel like a movie called Body Count but I just can’t decide which one to get. This one’s got Alyssa Milano and Ice-T fighting for their lives in the aftermath of a botched art heist and this other one’s got David Caruso John Leguizamo and Ving Rhames making a chaotic getaway in the aftermath of a botched art heist. I just can’t deci… wait! Here’s another one! Brigitte Nielsen breaks Sonny Chiba out of jail so he can go on a rampage of revenge and hijack a streetcar! Let’s see that one!”
