Though we’ve already rounded up some of the most awful movie taglines in existence, there’s more. Many more. In fact, so many more that it seems to indicate something of a problem in Hollywood.
Selling a movie isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Luckily, there are established marketing strategies, which usually include giving a movie a snappy tagline to help build a little interest. These taglines often tease some element of the film, and attempt to roughly communicate its overall tone.
Unfortunately, they all too often miss the mark. There’s a veritable bounty of truly awful movie taglines out there, and though a bad tagline rarely actively hurts a film’s sales, it’s certainly enough to earn it a little ridicule. We’ve gathered another 8 of these marketing stinkers to poke fun at.
8. Winter’s Bone (2010)
Tagline: “Talking just causes witnesses.”
Winter’s Bone tells the incredibly bleak story of an impoverished teen looking for her missing criminal father. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, and Garret Dillahunt, and is based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell. It also has one of the worst taglines of all time.
“Talking just causes witnesses” is nothing more than a nonsensical statement. Technically, talking doesn’t cause witnesses at all, so it’s factually incorrect. A witness would be someone who sees or experiences an event first-hand, so the only thing they’d be witness to is the talking itself.
It very vaguely alludes to Ree’s search for her missing father, but it’s still a ridiculous tagline. Not only does it mean nothing at all, but it does absolutely nothing to sell the film. Basically, “talking just causes witnesses” is just a string of words plastered on a poster, and it’s a truly awful tagline.