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Welcome to Trailer Hitch, BOP's look at the latest movie trailers to hit the Internet. This week: the King of Pop comes back from the dead, National Lampoon takes on vampires and Freddy Krueger undergoes the origins/reboot treatment.

Afterschool – Opens Friday

Video evidence is tough to trump. Just ask Robert, social outcast at an elite prep school and sole possessor of two girls' last waking moments on Earth, which he regretfully caught on camera. In said video, Robert is mysteriously shown walking slowly toward the girls without hesitation – not wildly screaming and running away from the bodies. Robert's actions, let alone having a camera in the right place at the right time, peg him as a probable suspect.

It probably goes without saying that Afterschool isn't a must-see movie in theaters (whoops). From the two minutes we get here, which includes bloody shots of the girls (who are found to have died from ingesting a substance that included, among other things, rat poison), I'm under the impression that the movie gets pretty grisly. If the boy in fact is in fact the party responsible, it's pretty telling (and disturbing) for him to exhibit hardly any feelings.

The material makes for a compelling trailer. Like the sneak peek to the reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street (which is discussed a little later in this column), we're never given an honest look at the supposed villain until the trailer's final frames. Only at this point do we see Robert's face, staring back at us, and in mid scream. These subtle composition choices in solely the trailer make me wonder whether something similar is done for the feature.

Grade: A-

The Ministers – Opens October 16th

Oh the ol' falling in love with the killer of your father gag. It'll get you every time! Especially when the man in question looks like John Leguizamo. At that point you're toast. In the movie, a woman (Florencia Lozano) sets out to uncover what happened to her father, who 13 years previously was murdered. The only evidence left at the scene is a pamphlet for a secret religious group dubbed The Ministers. While on the hunt for the guilty party, the woman falls for the man who likely played an instrumental part in the death of her father. Shameful.

Though scribe Franc. Reyes likely stole a few plays from the Dan Brown playbook, I'm oh so thankful that he didn't name a specific religious group outright like the famed author tends to do. Not sure I could handle the public backlash that tends to arise with new fiction.

As for the movie... doesn't look so good. Harvey Keitel, who clearly is in this thing for the paycheck, plays the police chief type. It's perhaps this movie's only redeeming quality.

Grade: D

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