“What’s important when you’re behind the wheel?
Is it control? Reliability amid chaos? Or a clear view through darkness?
Whatever you look for in the car, Stephen King knows… what drives a killer!”
King’s fairly developed marketing campaign revolving around his new novel Mr Mercedes simply cannot be overlooked. After looking at so many book trailers recently, surprisingly there are more coming! Being amongst those convinced to buy a book at early stages of its promotion, I wonder what is too much in that case. We have had a series of trailers preceding the release of the novel and they were designed to capture one’s attention, to cause intrigue and to raise questions that only a book can answer, which hit the jackpot. They were fancy, creative, rich and quite complex even though simple animation techniques were used (check out our reviews of Mr Mercedes’ book trailers: #1 - #5). And now, after Mr Mercedes is out on the shelves in bookshops already, Scribner offers us something refreshingly different.
We say goodbye to animation, as it is a video now – more realistic but raw at the same time. What seems to be an idyllic Sunday drive on the road through the forest, which at first looks like a car insurance commercial, quickly proves disturbing and one may presume it is going to head a different direction than they initially thought. The relaxed tune in the background contrasts with briefly flashing creepy black and white images of an open mouth, most probably screaming, and a body – presumably a victim’s. Apart from that, a few images in colour, a clown or a person wearing a clown’s mask, flash briefly on screen. References? The killer’s victims; that one is obvious. I am not too sure whether the location is relevant as it would seem that Mr Mercedes prefers urban landscapes where it is easier to drive into the crowd of people. Even though the viewing perspective is looking ahead on the road through the driver’s front window, we see no car elements so it is impossible to say what the car is or who drives it. Interestingly – the car does not speed! And last but not least – does the clown have something to do with King’s IT after all; is it the killer’s disguise?
Suddenly the Sunday drive tune breaks into a more anxious sound and the vision turns red. What we see next is unclear to me (being at the I-keep-touching-the-cover stage of reading): there is someone wearing teh clown mask again and white, perhaps rubber gloves this time. We see him stretching his fingers as he is getting ready to press the red button that…? Certainly: that will cause even more damage and suffering. It cannot all be random, can it? Mr Mercedes surely is plotting something big, but the question of the day is: what drives the killer? To find answers, turn into King’s twisted read and try to foresee the killer’s next move!
Watch the trailer here:
http://stephenking.com/promo/mr_mercedes/tv/
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