A lecturer reminded me of something very important the other week: you only get to read a text for the first time once – so relish it. Clearly this applies to all art forms: the first time you listen to a song, the first time you see a play, the first time you read a book; these are all special experiences should that, song, play or book, become something you cherish for the rest of your life. Yet, while the same can be said to an extent about film, our current ‘trailer culture’ is rapidly changing that. Ever since YouTube was created, movie studios have been churning out trailers, teasers and behind the scene videos like sausage meat, allowing viewers to know far more than they should before they see a film for the first time. Admittedly this allows you to decide how to spend your £8 when you go to the cinema, but it also permits over-keen fans to binge on film trailers, analysing each tiny detail that they may contain until they memorise each frame and word of dialogue, often causing them to form an opinion on a film they haven’t even seen yet. I am by no means saying I am exempt from this binging culture. Being disappointed by David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, despite having loved and obsessed over the trailer, taught me that trailer binging is a dangerous activity. Admittedly I massively preferred the film after a second viewing, but I still hold to this day that the film, which struck a chord with many viewers, would have had a greater impression on me had I not owned a laptop at the time.

Yet it’s not just trailer-bingers that are ruining the cinematic experience for themselves; more often than not it is trailer-editors that are ruining it for everyone else. One of the first examples of this was Leap Year, whose trailer contained 95 per cent of the plot, bar the ending, which any person with a couple of brain cells could guess without trying. While this was somewhat of an anomaly at the time, it’s become more and more common, and not just with regards to plot: comedy trailers are showing all the best gags, action films showing all their exciting pieces, horrors all the biggest scares and dramas all the punchiest lines. It’s one thing enticing audiences to see your film; it’s another to completely ruin it for them. And what’s so interesting about this problem is that it’s a purely cinematic one. Of course books have blurbs, plays have reviews and albums have pre-released singles, all of which may give you a taste of the overall piece, yet in these art forms there seems to be no equivalent so damaging as the modern trailer. Once more, as this problem is escalating, it’s getting harder to avoid. If you go to the cinema regularly, you have walk out of the cinema and come back in after the trailers have finished if you want to avoid the danger of an anticipated film being ruined.

So how do we solve this nagging problem? The first solution is to edit trailers carefully; it’s extremely hard to create an effective trailer that doesn’t give too much away, but there are ways to do it. A good example of this is the trailer for The Master, whose director Paul Thomas Anderson crafted it by using scenes that didn’t make the final cut, a frankly genius move that’s seeping into more trailers. Admittedly The Master is catered more towards an art-house market, but a well-made trailer can still be made for the mainstream. Just look at the trailer for Dark Knight Rises; it sets up the plot, shows us the main characters and some action set pieces, yet look closely and you can see that almost no footage from the last hour of the film is used, allowing audiences to experience it fresh in the cinema. Perhaps an embargo on using footage from the last 30 minutes of a film would better cater to trailers that demand more than the ambiguous.

The other option, however, is for viewers themselves to go cold turkey and restrict themselves from viewing any trailers. I tried to do this last year, and although it was tempting to give in, it was often extremely rewarding. Admittedly this won’t work for everyone; some people like to know what they’re seeing before they hand over their money and that’s more than understandable. But if you’re like me, and will happily see anything, I dare you to go to a cinema, pick a film with decent reviews and watch it. Who knows what might happen.