You can’t handle the taglines
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It’s bad enough that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars in an idiotic kiddy movie called "Tooth Fairy." But did the promotional campaign really need to use the stupidest taglines imaginable?
"The Tooth Hurts," proclaims one shameless poster for the movie. Another reads, "You Can’t Handle the Tooth."
Obviously this "Tooth Fairy" movie is a real masterpiece.
While nobody intends to make a bad movie, I’m convinced the marketing gurus behind "You Can’t Handle the Tooth" weren’t trying as hard as they should. Then again, what clever thing could possibly be said about a former wrestling superstar prancing around like a butterfly?
The Internet is full of blog posts about the absolute worst movie taglines, with the most cited being from the 1977 horror film, "Suspiria." It reads: The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92." Unintentional translation: This movie is pretty good, at least up until the ending.
While I consider the original "Jaws" to be one of the best suspense movies of all time, the third sequel, "Jaws: The Revenge" has one of the greatest bad taglines in film history. It reads, "This time, it’s personal." Apparently the sharks of the first three films only ate people for the tax write-off.
These terrible promotional tags never seem to go out of style. "Sherlock Holmes" opened on Christmas Day, so it only made sense for the poster to read, "Holmes for the Holidays."
The upcoming remake of "Clash of the Titans" probably wins the title of Laziest Promotional Tagline. It reads, simply, "Titans will clash." Really? I didn’t know! That’s like making a poster for "Shrek the Third" and writing "The third ‘Shrek’ movie" right under the title. Luckily, Dreamworks Animation opted for the far more clever, "The wait is ogre." Ha! LOL!
Another popular citation from the blogs is the apparent tag for "Rocky II," which reads, "Rocky shows he’s a champ… and wins!" Pretty bad that it gives away the ending, but I never found a poster or trailer that actually says it. I suppose it would have been a real downer if he lost again.
More good ones: "Sea Evil" from the terrible ocean-set horror movie, "Ghost Ship." "The Coast is Toast," from the 1997 Tommy Lee Jones film "Volcano," which was, amazingly, even worse than "Dante’s Peak." I also cite "Here they grow again" from "Gremlins 2: The New Batch." And "Chucky Gets Lucky" from the unfortunate puppet horror film, "Bride of Chucky." I’m still trying to get that image out of my head.
My favorite of the moment is the line for "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." I’ve never seen the movie, but the tagline makes me want to rush out to the video store. It reads, "Laugh, cry, share the pants." I only wish "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" was advertised with "Laugh, cry, share the pants harder."