WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Army of the Dead, now in theaters and streaming on Netflix.

Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead is, at its core, a guns-blazing zombie film complete with threats that are far more advanced than what fans could have ever expected. However, keeping fans in the dark about the larger narrative has been an integral strategy in the film's marketing since its theatrical trailer. In fact, the trailer itself sets the viewer up to believe that they know exactly what is coming. But through the film's genius marketing, the trailer barely scratches the surface of what actually transpires in the film.

The trailer begins with Dave Bautista's Scott Ward picking up his crew for the heist he was offered by Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada). Once collected, Tanaka begins a rundown of the plan as a voiceover. As he explains the heist, clips are shown of the safe being opened with $200 million lying in wait for them. The trailer then cuts to the first few moments when Ward and his team enter the zombie-infested Las Vegas.

RELATED: Zack Snyder Says Few 300 Actors Could Match His Fitness Level While Filming

What makes the trailer so misleading is that all of the scenes showing the heist are only clips of how Tanaka envisions the plan, and not the actual events that took place. Along with that, the moment when they enter Las Vegas is cut to include the film's opening montage that shows the initial outbreak taking over the city. But the most misleading part of the trailer is the closing shot of Ward and his team forming a circle and firing on what looks like an endless onslaught of zombies. In reality, the scene shown features teammates who quit before the mission began, like Damon (Colin Jones), and characters who died before reaching the vault, like Chambers (Samantha Win).

In the theatrical cut of the film, the heist itself is a lot messier and less ceremonious. Instead of having the film's safecracker, Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), simply walking up and easily cracking the device, the film shows how he and colleague Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick) use zombies to spring lethal traps leading up to the safe. From there, Dieter takes his time, listening closely to the mechanisms to crack it. The scene is a lot more tense than what is shown in the trailer and far less simple.

RELATED: Army Of The Dead's 'Dead Pixel' May Be A Bigger Netflix Problem

Even when the safe is cracked, things continue to go wrong as the literal army of the dead swarms their location and begins to kill team members. In the end, only Vanderohe escapes with any money, but he doesn't get to spend all of it as he later discovers he was also bitten by one of the zombies. Army of the Dead sought to surprise its viewers, and those surprises were set in place as early as the trailers.

The genius behind the marketing of these trailers lies in the heist. While most of the climactic action scenes are present in the trailer, they are cut together with Tanaka's vision of the heist scene. Therefore, the viewer thinks that what they are watching is the actual heist and the action scenes that result from it. In the actual film, however, once Tanaka explains his plan and the team makes their way into Vegas, it becomes clear that the trailer mainly shows Army of the Dead's first act. The beauty is how it explains the premise without spoiling the film, leaving a movie filled with twists and turns for those watching to uncover.

Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, Army of the Dead stars Dave Bautista, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Raul Castillo, Tig Notaro, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer and Ana de la Reguera. The film is now streaming on Netflix.

KEEP READING: Army of the Dead: How Did [SPOILER] Survive the End of the Movie?