New Buried Trailer Doesn't Even Bother With Movie Footage

The trailers for Buried take an intriguing, maybe unprecedented approach to selling the Ryan Reynolds-trapped-in-a-coffin thriller: With the latest now arriving online and in theaters, it's clear that Lionsgate would like nothing more than for you to forget the old saw insisting less is more. In this case, nothing is more.

Going back to Sundance -- when the film's premiere proved that, yes, Reynolds, director Rodrigo Cortés and writer Chris Sparling could pull off an unbelievably tense thriller in a box underground -- the original teaser mocked the viral video conceits of its protagonist's escape plan. Then, in April, buyer Lionsgate went with the ultimate minimalist approach of Reynolds voice over pitch black, with a sliver of harrowing context at the end. Today the distributor still leans on Reynolds, and there is some visual flair, but don't expect a real look inside the box until closer to the Sept. 24 release date; this is all tiny screengrabs and blurbs and flowing lines reminiscent of Saul Bass's opening credits of Psycho.

Which I appreciate -- there's no reason to give away too much too soon with any film, particularly with a one-location film like this. But it's a little... low-concept? When a trailer feels like some multimedia outgrowth of scrapbooking more than any visual trigger to buy a ticket, that's a problem. Thankfully, we have prior experience to go on; they could just stick the word Buried onscreen for 90 seconds, and it'd still come about as highly recommended as anything this fall. That's not a suggestion, Lionsgate.

VERDICT: Sold!