Focus Features has released a Maps to the Stars red-band trailer, and it provides a case study in trying to sell a movie.

David Cronenberg is a great director, but his latest movie, Maps to the Stars, has received mixed reviews after playing at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.  Perri liked it when she saw at the New York Film Festival.   The movie first opened in Italy and France all the way back in May.

The official synopsis paints a bizarre picture:

Meet the Weiss family, who are making their way in Hollywood rife with money, fame, envy, and relentless hauntings. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) is a famed TV self-help therapist with an A-list celebrity clientele. Meanwhile, Cristina Weiss (Olivia Williams) has her work cut out managing the career of their disaffected child-star son, Benjie (Evan Bird), a fresh graduate of rehab at age 13. Yet unbeknownst to them, another member of the Weiss family has arrived in town – mysteriously scarred and tormented Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), just released from a psych ward and ready to start again. She soon works her way into a friendship with a limo driver (Robert Pattinson) and becomes personal assistant to unraveling actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), who is beset by the ghost of her legendary mother, Clarice (Sarah Gadon). But Agatha is on a quest for redemption – and even in this realm of the artificial, and the unearthly, she’s determined to find it, no matter what it takes.

The UK trailer is ominous and mysterious.  This NSFW trailer is sinister.  And this new red-band trailer is all-out aggression.  Watch these three trailers, and maybe they'll provide a sense of what to expect from the film.  Or perhaps you should just realize that you're in for a David Cronenberg film and buckle up:

Maps to the Stars will be in theaters, On Demand, and iTunes on February 27th.