Film Preview: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Film Poster

Page Revisions:

(May 28, 2023) Original
(July 9, 2023) New Trailer (#2)
(September 17, 2023) New Trailer (#3) — New Posters (#1-#3)
(October 15, 2023) New Posters (#4-#5)
(October 22, 2023) New Trailer (#4) — New Posters (#6-#7)

Release Date:

October 20, 2023

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “Members of the Osage tribe in the United States are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major F.B.I. investigation involving J. Edgar Hoover.”

Poster Rating: C / C+ / C / C (2) / C / C+

SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: (#1) Blood as a background is unappealing while it only somewhat tackles the film’s premise. Meanwhile, the foreground image lacks compulsion. (#2) The blood motif is less obvious here, but no less unappealing. There are more figures to add depth to the design, but they are poorly laid out. (#3) The moon is given poor use as a framing device that isn’t complete while the inset is rather cheap and the lettering bold and ugly.

(#4-#5) Another pair of dull designs for film and sound formats that fail to sell the film as something interesting.

(#6) This watercolor design might conjure up stylistic Native American inspiration, but it also does nothing to sell the film itself. (#7) While this feels a bit tacky in some ways, it’s superlative to the other two format designs released. It’s attention-grabbing even if not structurally strong.

Trailer Rating: B- / B / B- / C+

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Review: (#1) Leonardo DiCaprio’s glum expression makes far too many appearances in the trailer, which causes the primary thrust of the notion of his narrative “who are the wolves in this picture” statement to stick out poorly rather than to make the film feel organic.

(#2) A nice musical accompaniment helps root this drama in a challenging era of the United States’ past and sets up a lot of drama for the viewer. That it also looks a bit overly familiar and too explosive in certain areas makes you wonder why the tonal discrepancies.

(#3) While this is exactly how you present narrative without oversharing, the trailer wants the audience to get invested in it because of who stars without conveying the information necessary to genuinely appeal.

(#4) When releasing wide, it’s important to reach a broad audience and this attempt to do so is so poorly executed that it comes off feeling like a confusing mess of a film without a single plot thread worth latching onto.

Oscar Prospects:

Martin Scorsese can never ben discounted as an Oscar contender and since he’s not going full genre, he has a decent shot at several nominations and even wins.