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Trailers for These Breakout Horror Hits Turned Terror on Its Head
They closed with burning questions only buying a ticket could answer
“Prob the loudest jump scare I have ever experienced in a movie theater.” “Someone genuinely screamed in my theater.” “The giant IMAX screen and insanely loud sound made this look like the scariest movie ever made.”
These are all Reddit comments—not about a horror movie but about a horror trailer. I knew it was Other Mommy, and I knew exactly the moment they were reacting to—because I’d literally jumped out of my desk chair months before when Universal’s marketing team shared the trailers they were considering for the film.
There’s a performative pleasure in telling others just how scared you were. The best horror marketers know that, and have for a long time. The trailer for the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) ended with the promise, “Once you stop screaming, you’ll start talking about it.”
And everyone in my family knows that my uncle, after going to see Psycho (1960) in college, couldn’t take a shower without ripping open the curtain every two minutes to make sure he was alone.
But while the jump scare got all the attention—making Universal’s decision to release the Other Mommy trailer in theaters before it debuted online look brilliant—its power is set up by the instant recognizability of its opening. That’s something it shares with 2026’s two biggest horror breakouts, Obsession and Backrooms. All three also leave you with urgent questions that only buying a ticket can answer.
The Other Mommy promo starts grounded, in sunny domesticity, using its Oscar-winning star to lead the audience down a primrose path of mother-daughter cuteness. It’s so convincingly not a horror film that some online confessed to wondering why Jessica Chastain was doing a commercial for Turkey Hill ice cream.
Then you realize something isn’t quite right—and the trailer slowly cranks up that unsettling feeling to 11. (During trailer testing, we came to think of those moments when you weren’t sure which mommy was onscreen as the marketing’s “magic trick”). The clip delivers the payoff in an unexpected way: with a background shot of Chastain tangled up monstrously under the table. Daughter screams. Daddy crashes through the kitchen window. Neither feels like an overreaction.
The piece closes by reprising the “magic trick” ending with Chastain assuring her daughter that “It’s me. I’m mom”—leaving them asking which mommy is it? (and how much fun will it be to never be sure?)
Stick the ending, like a dagger in the heart
Nothing in the Obsession or Backrooms trailers delivered a shocking scare—but each plugged viewers in with relatability upfront then left them with burning questions only buying a ticket could answer.
Obsession’s full trailer starts with Bear scrolling through Nikki’s Instagram. Over warm, emotive synths, his infatuation practically oozes from the screen as a friend establishes Bear’s problem: “If Nikki means this much to you just say, ‘Nikki, I think we should grab a drink sometime.’” An instantly recognizable situation that connects you to Bear right away—but what really made the difference in Obsession testing was hearing from Nikki pre-wish—the real Nikki.
Relating to her made it a story not just about a wish gone wrong. We focused on a person robbed of their self—which allowed viewers to sort of root for her as she delivered mayhem but also seeded a more compelling question than simply “Will Bear survive the crazy stalker he has created?” The approach invested us in whether Nikki would get her “self” back.
In the Backrooms trailer, the relatability was in the setting—and the questions were seeded early. It opens with a wide exterior shot of a seen-better-days furniture store, the kind every suburb in America likely has. “I found something. In the store,” we hear, as we follow Chiwetel Ejiofor towards the back of the store, “I found a place.”
That the place he found—the backrooms—looks uncannily like the place he left but slightly tweaked. And when the trailer progresses to mayhem that only adds urgency to the question “What is the backrooms and why does it exist?” And maybe even, “Does my office have one?”
What I’d take from it
We’ve been talking about trailers, but it’s useful to think of a horror campaign as a timeline. Every piece should raise a question, make it a little bigger and save the answer for the theater.
If I were briefing a team tomorrow, I’d keep it to four notes. Start with a person (or other relatable element, like a place) before you deliver a scare. Keep the antagonist in the shadows as long as you can. Spread the reveals across the whole campaign, and give people something to do while they wait.
And end on something big enough to stick, an image people are still wondering about on the drive home.
