"Chain Letter" Movie Trailer Review

"Chain Letter"

Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Jeremy Wilkinson

While horror movies have a long tradition of making the mundane into a terrifying nightmare, ‘Chain Letter’ does not look like it’s quite up to the task of transforming the titular superstition into something to be feared.

The shoestring plot involves a bunch of friends receiving chain letters via text messages, along with the requisite threats of dying should it not be passed along. A masked man (or men?) shows up in the trailer, attacking the non-senders with chains.

That’s it.

Everything about the trailer indicates this film will be nothing more than a sub-par slasher film, attempting to use the novelty of a popular superstition as a background for gore-filled set pieces. Could it end up being another revenge story? It’s not like the killer would be able to tell who sent the chain letter along, so one assumes the people who receive the letter are going to be attacked regardless of how they respond to the message. And, if people who delete it are indeed the only ones targeted, I point back to the flaw of not being able to know who did or did not send the text. Without a supernatural element, the second scenario would be too illogical to hold up.

Even without those issues, the whole concept seems rather silly. Whoever is narrating the trailer sounds like he knows it’s ridiculous, but he seems to be the only one in on the joke because the shots from the film itself lack any sense of humor.

Unless they are saving the best scenes for the movie, ‘Chain Letter’ looks to be another dime-a-dozen gore flick that one should probably just avoid when it creeps into theaters.

View the trailer below: