The Girl in the Photographs Trailer (2016)

Trailer for The Girl in the Photographs, starring Kal Penn and Claudia Lee.

In Nick Simon’s The Girl in the Photographs, Colleen’s life isn’t going anywhere. The small town check out girl with natural beauty is bored with her dead end job and annoyed by her apathetic boyfriend. This isn’t the life she wanted. In the midst of her turmoil, a pair of deranged serial killers begin leaving her photos of their mutilated victims.

Her chance to escape comes in the form of Peter Hemmings, a hipster celebrity photographer who has traveled back to his hometown of Spearfish, South Dakota, with a pack of models, intent on copying the killers’ intense and unapologetic artistry. When he learns Colleen is the killers’ muse, Peter resolves to make her his own and use her as the centerpiece of a photo campaign in Los Angeles.

But before Colleen can leave her old life behind, she must contend with the desires of her murderous stalkers who have chosen her last night in town to execute their most provocative work to date.

The Girl in the Photographs has the privilege to be Wes Craven's last production before the horror genius who gave us A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Last House on the Left -- to name a couple -- passed away after a battle with brain cancer on August 30, 2015. Craven sat on the project as the film's executive producer.

The film found a couple ways to pay tribute to Wes. Besides the opening credits which make sure to state "For Wes", The Girl in the Photographs also opens to a fake horror movie called Blood Relations. It just so happens that this was the name of Wes Craven's original script title for The Hills Have Eyes.

A lot of strange things are going on in this The Girl in the Photographs trailer. If you are thinking I mean the plot, you'd be half right, as I'm still trying to absorb the character being played by Kal Penn. Now, I am not one to typecast, but is it just me or does Kal Penn sound high in just about every role he has played since Harold & Kumar. I know I know, it's not fair, but mostly true.

The next question is if Kal Penn is playing the bad guy or not. Thinking of the Scream formula, I can imagine that we are made to think Penn's character is terrible, then he clears his name, only to have us once again find out he is the criminal or has his own demons that are just as bad. Just guessing but, if I nailed the twist, spoiler alert! #too late

While the trailer for the film at least has my attention on what possible twists are in store, I'm having a tough time finding another reason to head to theaters for this one. What I would appreciate, however, is a red band trailer. Considering that the film does come off hard-R, how about a fitting unrated trailer to provide some added visuals? Eh?