I don’t normally pay notice to movies like The Ruins. What can I say? I just don’t care about generic horror. But for some reason (accidental? good marketing?) its trailer was shown twice, almost back to back, when I went to see Cloverfield, and it stuck in my head. However, merely having the thing in my memory doesn’t mean I’m interested. I didn’t think it looked good the first time around, and the second time it was met with much heckling and laughter from the rest of the audience. Much of this was obviously due to the awkwardness of the reappearance alone, but also the movie’s apparent faults, much of them simply based on conventional cheesiness, were certainly heightened by their repetition.

Now, with this new Red Band trailer (age-checked here, if the YouTube fails), I feel like I’m seeing the trailer again for a third time. Actually, I think the original cut made the movie look scarier. Typically, the reason to have a Red Band trailer is to pull out the stops and show things you can’t have in a regular version, such as nastier gore, some swear words and, if you really want to go all out, some naked flesh. But this has none of that. For a minute I thought this was one of those illogical Red Band trailers made for PG-13-rated horror movies. But The Ruins is in fact Rated R, and is such for “strong violence and gruesome images, language, some sexuality and nudity.” Thank goodness the MPAA has let us know what’s in the movie, since DreamWorks’ marketing team fails to share any of the goods.

So, I’m confused. Why did I have to prove my age to see this trailer (before finding it on YouTube, that is)? This is the tamest (and lamest) Red Band trailer ever.