Hello friends!
Hello!
We are back with another episode of In Horror We Trust!
What's your favorite scary movie?
On today's episode we are talking about marketing!
Woo!
Yeah!
But listen guys, horror movies are known to have some of the coolest viral marketing or just like renowned marketing stunts that we've seen.
Yes, absolutely. And we're here today to talk about a few movies in particular and how their marketing was a cut above the rest.
Oh!
Like what I did there?
Well, I just want to say first of all, I mean marketing obviously is important for everything, but horror movies in general, it's so exciting for me.
I just love when a new trailer comes out or whatever, just the ways they get you hyped up for these movies.
I want to say like I can't think of too many other genres per se that go so hard I guess with their marketing than with horror.
Like I've seen a couple of things.
Like more recently, I know House of the Dragon has been going kind of viral with their marketing with like dropping certain flags if you're teen green or teen black.
Like in certain areas they've like CGI'd images and it's getting people all hyped for the new season, but like you don't really see that all too often.
Unless they fucking lie to you and the movie's shit and they duped you with the cool marketing.
Yeah, I'm just kidding.
That happens.
Or it's like I feel like with other films the marketing is actual merchandise.
Yeah, definitely.
So these movies did a little creative spin to get you excited to get you talking about these movies.
Yeah.
Would you like to start a show off?
Absolutely.
So I'm kind of going to jump around in timelines here, different decades, but I figured let's start with something more recent.
And I want to talk about 2022's Smile.
Yes.
Very, very simple.
Simple, simple concept.
But so well done.
So Smile came out in 2022.
And it is about a main character who after witnessing a bizarre and traumatic incident involving a patient, a psychiatrist becomes increasingly convinced that she is being threatened by an uncanny entity, directed by Parker Finn in his feature directorial debut based on the short film Laura Hasn't Slept, starring Socie Bacon, Jesse T. Usher, and Kyle Gallner.
Hell yeah.
And we've already been through this.
We did really enjoy them.
Surprisingly, yes, really enjoyed the movie.
And I think the marketing kind of set the tone for the film.
Yeah.
So one of the major points was during some major league baseball games and even on segments of the Today Show, people were spotted in the crowds kind of eerily smiling ahead, like straight head on into the cameras.
And the cameras would just kind of like linger on them and just catch this horrifying kind of image and no one really knew what was going on.
Some of during some of the events they were wearing t shirts that said Smile.
Other events it was just people in plain clothes.
And everyone was like, what the hell is going on?
What is this?
Yeah, I remember spotting them.
I mean, some of them I did see just in clips that were brought up online like on social media.
Yeah.
But some of them I did like organically see.
And I was like, wait, what is that?
Something's off.
Yeah.
I had seen the trailer before like seeing these appearances.
So I did like eventually like I didn't know eventually or like I connected it.
But super cool.
I love that.
Yeah, I can't.
I think I had seen the trailer.
I think I had seen the movie honestly before I had heard about the viral marketing.
So was that really effective on me?
I don't know.
I just don't watch regular television.
So it was a little hard for me to catch.
But once I had seen the film and heard about it, I was like, I need to go back and watch this.
And it was it was really well done.
And I just I don't know.
I found it interesting because specifically for me watching the trailer, I wasn't sold on the film.
And I think we kind of went over this in the episode.
But the marketing, I think, was so just kind of genius.
But it was still easy that I was like, OK, they put some effort in here.
Yeah.
I really great.
I appreciate any I do kind of appreciate any marketing that goes beyond just like the trailer.
And like, I mean, trailers can just in on their own be effective.
Like, I mean, hereditary.
I know there were some some kind of things they sent out for marketing, but it goes to influencers or something.
Yeah.
So I guess they did a little bit beyond trailers, but their trailer immediately hooked me.
Yeah. We have that with a lot of film.
Yeah. But I do really appreciate when they go that step beyond and kind of make it tangible and interactive.
Yes. I think it's effective and just cool.
I do, too. And I know that the marketing did work for a lot of people.
It created a buzz around the movie and it got people interested and people went out and saw it.
So when for them?
I mean, like stuff like that now, I feel like are even more effective just having the Internet and social media because it just gets shared like a bunch.
And then all it takes more exposure.
One person to see that and be like, what the heck is this?
And if that clip goes viral, that's it.
Yeah. Everyone's got their eyes on you.
I mean, I guess it's just viral clips in general, but like, you know, the the creepy clown.
What was it? It's like the creepy clowns that would just show up on like surveillance cameras around like cities.
That wasn't for any movies or anything, but it was just like.
So people did think that it was associated with it because it was coming out at around that same time.
But this is a perfect segue because it is also one of the movies came out in 2017.
It was directed by Andy Machete and starring Bill Skarsgard, Jaden Martel, Finn Wolford, just to name a name a few because there are so many actors in this movie.
I doubt this needs an explanation, but I'll give a very short synopsis.
So in the summer of 1989, a group of bully kids band together to destroy a shape shifting monster,
which disguises itself as a clown and preys on the children of Derry and their small main town.
Stephen King, baby. Yeah.
So that played a huge part in in the marketing for it.
Everyone thought, oh, my God, this has to be associated with it.
And ironically, it wasn't. That's funny.
But the marketing team did kind of take this and run with it.
And so what they did was they started taking a singular red balloon and tying it to sewer grates and various storm drains around the country.
And people were taking photos of these incidents and posting it on social media.
And it just created kind of this whole hype around that.
And people were losing their damn minds.
I love that. I wonder because people who know the story or had seen the like Tim Curry one before or had read the book.
Yeah, obviously. No. Like that's just knowing that the sewer scene is just like, oh, how creepy.
So I wonder if people who really didn't don't know the movie or the story would just be like, what is that?
Yeah. Or but maybe it's still eerie enough to grab their attention.
And part of me wonders how many of these stunts that like the marketing team actually pulled and how many people just ran with it because they know how scared people are of it.
So and how it probably just kind of tumbleweeded into this massive thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Which I thought was cool. The marketing team.
Also, this is not really it is marketing, but it's a different kind of way of of handling kind of the movie.
The team hired local artists around the country to create murals for the film.
And this was a way for them to create local specific kind of posters for the film.
And they were all kind of center around the culture of that like town or that area.
So you had very different images of Pennywise and of the movie.
Kind of blasted on the side of buildings or on walls.
And yeah, it was kind of that was cool. A way to create some buzz.
Yeah. That's all I have on it.
Pretty cool. That is very cool.
Well, I guess I'll bring up I'm sure this is on your list.
I think most horror fans know about this one. It's one of the most iconic ones.
But Blair Witch Project, I think was one of maybe one of the first super viral.
I'm not sure if at the time I think it did go viral at the time.
I'm just looking at it as a retrospective because we keep talking about it.
It was to along the very, very early days of like the Internet as well.
So they were one of the first to like make a website.
Yeah. That that acted like it was it was like essentially a missing persons page.
Yeah. So they put backstories of all the characters on that.
They put missing person posters.
Yeah. Information like as if the characters in the movie, the students studying the Blair Witch,
made a website about their project too. But yeah, the filmmakers had made missing persons posters
of each of the characters in the film and posted them around the city and everything.
Yeah. People thought it was real. This was actual found footage.
Obviously, it plays so great because this is one of the early most popular like found footage horrors.
It really kind of played with that. This viral marketing stunt.
Absolutely. Even though maybe now looking at it, it's like that's going to.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I did some digging on this website because I was really curious.
And the website doesn't exist anymore, but it can still be found.
Like portions of it have been like archived.
So they use the website to post a variety of interactive information,
including missing persons ads of Heather, Joshua and Michael.
They uploaded pictures, journal entries, and even interviews with family members of the quote unquote missing teens.
And this was all before the film even made it to theaters. Yeah.
This website had over 20 million hits. And for the like 90s,
that's a lot of people tuning in and checking out this website, looking at it.
They also created a fake documentary on the Blair Witch legend to sell the realness of their marketing, which I thought was very cool.
I tried to find it. I couldn't find it. That's incredible effort for like an indie fucking horror movie.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So cool.
The missing persons ads were not just used on the website, but were physically posted all over like polls and stuff on college campuses.
If I've never heard of guerrilla marketing before, this was absolutely it.
This was filmmakers that really wanted to sell their idea and they had a team behind them that just sold this.
Did like it was really, really creative. Yeah. I mean, shoot, I would have got my attention. Right.
Did people get upset about it at all? Or is that more of a thing now?
Like, oh, you know, people who actually have missing, you know, like, I honestly don't know.
That would be a really interesting like kind of concept to dig into.
Because I feel like they probably once they've people had found out that it was a marketing thing and that they weren't really missing people.
Like, I wonder if people got upset about it or something.
It's like, obviously, that wasn't the intention, but like, and you can't, you know, you can't take it personally.
It's not directed at anyone in particular, but I'm just curious.
I don't know. That'd be interesting to look into, though. I'm curious.
Yeah, it was wild. This movie ended up bringing in about two hundred and forty million dollars worldwide. Wild.
Yeah. The type of marketing they kind of invented it basically. Oh, I found the documentary. You did?
It's called ARG, which is alternate reality game.
But yeah, a lot of people really like pulled from that. But yeah, they would like call it that for a sense.
Like, I wish basically. Interesting. I need to watch this now. Thank you for finding that.
It took him all of two seconds and I was digging around like, where is this?
Another movie that follows suit that comes out a little later, early 2000s,
which is my personal favorite in terms of its marketing style that borrowed a lot from the Blair Witch is The Ring in 2002, which is the remake.
But I definitely feel like they created quite the buzz around this before the movie aired and after.
Right. Aired before the movie was released and after.
So The Ring is directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson and Brian Cox.
Hell yeah, brother. And in The Ring, a journalist must investigate a mysterious video.
Bellies drinking water. Sorry guys.
So a journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape, which seems to cause the death of anyone one week to the day after they view it.
So this marketing strategy was really, really interesting. It was started killing people seven days after.
Well, I mean, essentially their strategy was to get as many people to view the cursed tape without being aware of what it is to create kind of buzz.
So they achieved this by airing the tape through snippets of like late night TV. They would just air it with no context whatsoever.
And if you guys haven't seen it or please remember, like the little the little tape in the movie, it's creepy. It's super enigmatic.
You don't know what the fuck's going on, but it's just super creepy images.
I can't imagine just it coming through the program.
And especially in 2002, like that must have been so horrifying to see just like be watching the late night show and then it's just a random clip.
Like, imagine the kids who had fallen asleep on their couch, you know, waking up like Samara's ass.
Well, this lady brushing her hair and shit.
So creepy. So creepy.
They also created a website that would allow you to input somebody's email where the person would receive the cursed film.
So I feel like Scream, Scream 7 or Scream 6, excuse me, kind of borrowed from this idea where they had like you could enter in your friend's phone number and Ghostface would call you.
Yes. Same kind of concept, except it was via the Internet and they would just be emailed this like cursed video with no context again.
Yeah. My favorite portion of their marketing kind of development throughout the beginning portion was they took physical copies of the tape and they left it on people's windshields of their cars.
They left it on theater seats. They, I mean, they left it anywhere and anywhere that you could possibly think of for people to stumble upon them.
The tapes were unmarked, unlabeled, no one knew what they like, what it contained or where they came from.
And the tape would then lead people into a network of websites, including one that was a murderer, quote unquote, who was a victim of the tape.
So it was just like an endless loop of like watch the tape, go to our website, go to the website. So people were like, what is going on here?
Yeah. It's really, really interesting.
And didn't, I think I read like Dreamworks denies the existence of like the websites or something.
Oh yeah.
Or that, you know, yeah. Yeah. But like people have found archives of like the websites.
Can't hide shit from the Internet.
That is so cool. I feel like, well, I definitely remember.
So obviously this probably intrigued a lot of people for the film.
And then the film was a success or like, you know, it's, it's definitely kind of made its imprint in horror history.
Both the original and this remake. But like, I definitely remember after watching it, pranking friends or wanting, with like calling them and saying, seven days.
And that just like, I feel like if you hadn't seen the movie and you were seeing your friends do that to each other, you're like, what the fuck does seven days mean?
And so it was just recruiting this whole other group of people to go and see the movie.
And it was just, it was everywhere. Anyone ever talked about for a while.
Yeah. That one really went to stuff to like snowballing for sure.
Absolutely. I mean, could you imagine like going to your car and just seeing an unmarked tape?
Like imagine in today's world, you just walked up to your car and saw an unmarked tape sitting on your windshield.
I'd be like, how do I play this?
I'm just kidding.
Well, that being the number one factor.
We still have, we still have a VCR.
Yeah.
But like, would you play it?
Probably. Nowadays, yes.
You would?
Yeah. Yeah. I'd be curious. Would you Adam? Yes.
I would check it out. I did read a Reddit post though.
Yeah.
For the second movie, somebody said they got one on their windshield.
And when they watched it, they threw it out because they were like, what the fuck is this?
Maybe I would. I could see myself throwing it out the first time.
See, I could see myself being like, the fuck is this shit, weirdo?
And just like throwing it out because I know better and I'm like, I don't want to know what's on that.
Well, okay. So VHS, maybe I would be more inclined to maybe not like a DVD or like a USB hard drive or anything.
You bring up a good point.
That specific medium, I'd be like, well, I can't get a virus on my ass or like.
So maybe in today's world, I'd be more inclined to play it.
Maybe back then though.
But back then, probably not.
And then, but I agree with you, if somebody like taped a USB drive onto a car, I would be like, absolutely not.
Yeah. This shit's going to get me killed.
Yeah. And I wouldn't even think of like horror or supernatural shit.
I'd just be like someone from the dark web following me.
These are like pictures of me in my home.
Or they're hiding their own fucked up shit and then it's going to land on you.
I know. Or I just, I'd be like, this has some sort of absolutely fucked malware on it.
And I'm not plugging that into any of my electronics.
Yeah. Yeah. VHS, especially now.
I'm just like, ooh, it's on it. Cause it's like, I miss VHS.
Would you watch it by yourself or would you be like, hey guys, I found this tape. Let's watch it.
Well, I, yeah. Probably you too.
Yeah. Cause I know you're both appreciators of this stuff.
Someone needs to do that again. Let's hop on the ring train. Let's, let's.
Yeah. You know, I mean, it's not in the same vein, but I will say Adam for his short film mailed his crew members and cast members.
He taped his film, recorded it on a VHS tape and made a custom VHS cover for its sleeve with artwork and the whole like back info.
And it was super cool. Made it by hand, crafted it. Such a pleasure to receive.
And cast members. It was really nice. I worked on it. Yes. I got one. We ended up so nice. Super cool. Yeah. Super cool. Super cool.
So, boop. So it is possible.
But I think what would be more fun to see if it would work is to run with that idea. Let's just go leave a bunch of thumb drives on people's cars and see who's dumb enough to plug it in.
Do you, do you personally remember the ring marketing during that time?
Yeah. Yeah. I think I was too scared to go into like any of the websites and whatnot, but I do remember seeing the clip once on TV while I was watching it with my parents, but I didn't think anything of it.
I don't think I really understood what was happening. I mean, I was old enough to, but I was like, didn't think anything about it.
And then, but the whole seven days thing ran rampant. Everybody that I knew. Yeah. And I remember begging my mom to go see this movie and we went and saw it and I was like, yeah.
How'd your mom like it? My mom loved it, but she was annoyed with me because I think we saw it a couple times in theaters.
And then I owned it on VHS ironically enough. You got a steel book now. I know. Now I have a steel book.
It's one of those movies. It's just, it's absolutely nostalgic for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So this is a more modern one and a more flashy one of marketing, but Megan. Oh.
This one was definitely more like, it wasn't obscure. You like, you know, it was for Megan and I'm pretty sure this was after the trailer was already released and stuff.
But they basically had a bunch of dancers or actors dress up actresses as, as Megan, the doll. And they, yeah, these dancers would show up at like an NFL game or just red carpet events.
And they would be like just marching in in line and then they would do the fucking Megan dance. And that was just a little fun one.
And I mean, Megan was already going viral from the trailer for this killer doll girl doing like a dance. That's very much reminiscent of like a TikTok vibe of dance, you know?
So it kind of just played into each other. And I think it did stir up enough. I think, I think more so the social media aspect of like just seeing this doll dance and kind of the meme of it made people want to see it a lot.
So that worked out. But that was just one of note that I remember in recent times.
My favorite part about the Megan marketing was her beef with Chucky on Twitter.
That's so true. I forgot about that.
That alone made me and one of my friends, Alaina, go and check it out in theaters. And I mean, it wasn't, I'm not like a huge Megan fan, but I thought the movie was fun.
I think it was a good intro into horror, especially for like the younger crowd. But we just thought the beef was so funny. We were like, this has to be like at least at most a horror comedy.
We need to check this out.
Well, speaking of like two iconic horror characters getting into beef. Do you remember Freddie versus Jason doing the weigh-in and fucking press conference? Adam had brought this up.
But I do remember seeing the videos and the footage of it. But that's iconic. I mean, horror fans are already yearning for this to happen.
So just and you know, it's kind of like comedic. Well, especially watching Freddie versus Jason now. You just it's just super fun and yeah, laugh and stuff.
But and obviously Freddie at this point had become a very fun, lively character. And I mean, even in the 80s, they were really he was like a pop culture icon and Jason.
But like, especially Freddie, because he had the quips and everything. But so that's just so perfect to have a boxing like weigh-in moment facing each other in costume and doing press conference.
Please look up look up the videos that they're still on. Yeah, if you haven't seen it, please do it. It's great. Love that. I want more Freddie versus Jason.
Well, yeah, I guess just like horror characters versus each other. You know, there's there's fucking Sadako and what in the grudge? Oh, there's a movie where they versus each other.
What? Yes, it's on it's on shutter. Can you please watch the trailer? It looks amazing. Please send me the link to this. Yeah, I wonder if they did a weigh-in shoot.
Oh, man. But anyway, okay, so that just reminded me of, you know, that iconic moment. Definitely. Marketing. But, okay, so I think the most recent effective marketing I've seen has been for Long Legs.
Yes, which is coming out at the end of July.
So this one they didn't really have like, well, I guess it is kind of interactive, but it's not like stuff placed around the world. Yeah, it's mostly come from the teasers and the trailers.
So Long Legs first started out with a few teasers and they were super eerie. They just had a like a slow pushing shot on something in the film. You didn't know the context of the scene or anything. It was just very short.
The music and I think some might have had like, I don't know if any of them had dialogue, the few original clips they showed, but it just hit me in a way that I thought was, I was like, I want to see this already.
It was just really creepy and it's just like a cool, I don't know, shot. So I remember catching one of them.
I think it was on, I was scrolling through TikTok and it was on there and I got legitimately so creeped out. I flipped, I didn't even watch the whole thing.
So I was like, this is going to be, do you remember when we were younger? It was like one of those scare games, like those scare videos where it was like they drive through the hills and it pushes in and that face pops out.
I was fully expecting that. So I was like, no, I don't want to see it. And then I remember, I think we were recording for an episode and you had come over and you were talking to me about it.
And I was like, oh, and I remember asking you, does anything pop out? And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, just watch it. Just watch it.
It's just an eerie clip.
So I went through and I watched all the clips that were available and I was like, this is, what is going on here?
But I'm sure, I believe in those clips for sure in the trailers, but in the clips there would be like symbols that were kind of disjointed and they would just kind of appear in the clip.
And it basically became like understood that this was kind of like a cipher. And so people decoded it eventually. Did it spelled out long legs?
Yes. So there's this whole Twitter thread that people have created where they are dissecting every single like little 15, 30 second trailer.
So they pulled out all of the symbols and they created a legitimate cipher. So then they went back and they connected all of the symbols and they found out that at least in one of the trailers, it's spelling out long legs.
And then they went back in. And so particularly the short trailer where it's just a black figure sitting there.
Somebody, it almost looks like a nun kind of. Somebody lightened the image and there's a face in it.
And it's really creepy. And so people were just going nuts about these small clips and finding so many little tiny nuances in every single one. And I had to get off of it.
Oh, I see it.
That's cool.
So I thought I stopped because I was like, I don't want to dig too deep and then end up figuring something out that I don't want to know. So I kind of let it be. But I thought it was so cool that people were getting this into it and wanting to learn and figure it out.
Because the trailer is really interesting and even the teasers, they almost feel like just disjointed or separate things going on. But I want to see how it comes all together. Because you see the one of the teasers is just like, there is a nun and like a crucifix on.
That's the one I'm talking about that has, I think, the face in it.
Yeah. And there's also one that almost looks like a true crime documentary. It's like a picture, this Polaroid or printed out picture of a family and then like, I don't know. And then you have like Michael Monroe and stuff.
And I don't know. They're just very enigmatic. You don't know what's happening. You don't know any context. I don't want to because I'm just, yeah, I want to find out because it's just like, how does this all connect? And there's just some really creepy imagery and like, I don't know.
I have a question for you. Yes. Do you think that casting Nicolas Cage was a marketing ploy in and of itself? Just because he's kind of paved a name for himself in recent years in horror?
I think so. I feel like, I mean, casting usually does have some marketing power for that. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are like, oh, how crazy is it going to be?
And like in the trailers, you do not really see him or you don't know what character he's supposed to play.
You do hear his voice. And that voice is enough for me to be like, I think they're going to dial him at an 11 and I'm cool with that. Yeah. I think also reading, I'm trying not to read that much, but we've been seeing some reactions of people who have seen it.
Spoiler free, of course. But like just reactions to people who have seen it in the festival circuit or whatever. And it, I don't want to over hype it for myself, but like it sounds promising. It does.
Another really cool thing that, because it's neon, correct? Yeah. Yeah. That neon has been doing is they've been selecting influencers in kind of like the horror community. Yeah.
They've been sending them to go see a screening of this movie in a rented out theater by themselves. Oh my God. Yeah. I think I did hear about that. Yeah. God damn it. Word. We're core influencers. Come on, neon.
Please, please just send them this sound. Please neon, please.
That's so cool though. Yeah. Which I feel like after seeing some of the reactions of the people that have gotten the ability to go and see it. I'm like, that would be such a cool experience.
And the film sounds promising, but again, I'm in your same boat where I'm like, I don't want to place any expectation on this film. And I kind of just want to go into it and let it be what it is and just enjoy it for what it is. I'm so excited.
This is my most anticipated film at the moment. And it just, I don't know. I've just, the trailers have just really been hitting me and I'm like, this looks fucking creepy and crazy. And I don't even know what's happening. I agree. Yeah.
Some, some other like fun techniques I have noticed too with, with marketing for horror films is creating like a escape room or like a maze specifically for that movie, like in downtown or some. Yeah. A saw did that when I can't remember if it was the first saw or the second saw, but they did create like a one-off maze.
It wasn't attached to Halloween Horror Nights or I do remember it being way out of the way. Yeah. But one of my friends was like, no, screw it. I'll drive. Like, let's just go. And so we all went and I remember that being one of the first like mazes to you where it was like interactive.
People could touch you. Cool. But it was a lot of pig masks and it was a lot of like jigsaw on the outside, kind of advertising it and stuff. So just, yeah.
And then besides like interactive kind of stuff like that, obviously there's like viral clips, which have played a part in ones we've talked about already. But for the strangers, this new one or is it a series or it's a movie, right? It's a trilogy. Oh, okay.
This new one that's out. The two stars were on the red carpet and I saw this clip on social media of them on the red carpet posing in front of like a step and repeat, but it was kind of like plaster or something.
And I remember that the strangers on it and the next to the female like star, someone dressed up as one of the killers, like smashes through. He like kind of like hacks through it right next to her and she like, like screams like she didn't know that was going to happen.
But that was already effective in itself because that started like kind of going viral and I was like, oh, that's fun. And it did kind of garner some interest. I'm sure with some people, but stuff like that. I mean, social media just really plays such a huge part in it.
It changed the game. Yeah, it really has. But it's, I feel like made people a little bit more creative, which is really, really interesting to see like how it plays out. I would, I just, I love the real world like interactive stuff that's physically putting something out there.
Yeah. I agree. I don't get much of that. So some honorable mentions of memorable marketing for horror is like paranormal activity. Maybe one of the first, at least first ones that really kind of popularized it is showing the audience reaction in theaters to like private screenings before it was released.
And you have the like nightlight on them. So it's like all in green and the reactions were genuinely terrifying. And some still do this. I've seen it online, like for some movies still. But I remember particularly for that one that actually really did make me want to see it.
But the impact that one had, I think was so significant because they use that specifically to get the movie played in more theaters. People were demanding it to be played at their local theaters. So it was pretty smart to get the film kind of distributed to all these places and scene.
So you got to give them props for that. I still, I genuinely got really scared from the first paranormal activity. I, it did like, I thought it was affective. Yeah.
How about you Adam, anything stand out to you? I was telling Carissa, they like kind of changed course on this a little later, but when they rebooted the Blair Witch, the Adam Wingard version in 2015, I think it was originally just titled The Woods.
And the title and the trailers would show just that title and people didn't really know what it was connected to. And so the initial strategy was going to be on opening night, you just get the title card, the Blair Witch, you know, like whole shit like, okay.
But I think it wasn't garnering enough interest. Initially, people were like The Woods. I don't know what that is. So they were worried that it was going to backfire. And so they just gave it the title and the trailer later on.
I wonder what would have happened had they like just ran with it, just said fuck it.
Yeah, and I think in more modern, or the last maybe five, 10 years, they've gotten into that territory. I think it's why there's fewer like alternate reality kind of like marketing because I feel like if it's not connected to a property that people like know, I think the studios get really scared about that.
But yeah, I'm hoping more people are like, you know, really like gutsy like long legs and stuff. Yeah, get brave enough to do it. Yeah, because like if you can put a trailer out where it literally says the title, encryptics, like where people have to find it out, like I think that that really shows that like maybe things might be like turning more towards that way because it seems like it's a very effective strategy.
I think too, or right now people are so hungry for new and creative ideas. People are tired of seeing kind of the rinse, recycle, repeat kind of stuff that we've gotten for a while. Not to say there weren't gems that have been coming out, but I think people are kind of hungry for this right now.
So I'm really excited to see what what independent cinema will bring to the table in terms of like getting us interested in their films. It's going to be kind of a wild ride the next couple of years. Definitely.
And might I say, just how important marketing is I think especially now, not only for like a film to do well, but like to get people to the theaters. Yeah, and I understand it's hard now it's expensive. Yeah, but like, I am scared of like the theaters dying out you know, I've heard people saying like their kids don't want to go to theaters, you know, yeah, because like, things are so available online. Yeah, or whatever at home. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know. It'll be interesting. And I think a lot of it to you has to deal with attention spans kind of shifting. So I think if people can kind of play on that and get you know audiences interested again, I think we'll we'll see you definitely some good stuff out there. So I'm excited. Yeah, I am excited.
Bring it. Any ideas of marketing we're going to do for this podcast is gonna be viral. Should we make cassette tapes? Should we leave cassette players? Should we leave some USBs with just our voices saying, do you like horror? One, two, listen to us.
No, maybe we'll maybe we'll come up with maybe maybe we'll do something. We have business cards with QR code we've been passing out. Yeah, we have some little merch lucky enough to catch one. Yeah, we've been wearing like some of our own, like customized merch that is not like wholesale yet.
But maybe we'll be maybe it will be maybe it will. But it has it has garnered questions and some looks. You know, we're just two girls and a dude trying to do our best down here. Yeah.
But yeah, that wraps up our episode.
Well, since we have last recorded the 99% of the episode before, Neon has come out with, it was literally the night of or day after we finished recording the first 99%.
Neon had taken an extra extra step with the long legs marketing. So they had just released this really cool ad in, I believe the Seattle Times newspaper in real life, featuring a cipher on the whole page, similar to the ones we've been seeing in the trailers, and very reminiscent of the Zodiac Killer.
You know, obviously writing these ciphers to the press to publish, and at the bottom it says printed at the request of long legs.
And apparently, people have decoded the cipher to lead them to a website called the birthday murders.net. And when you go to this website, it basically details the fictional victims and murders of the serial killer long legs and it's very much like these old school websites that murderino's
made back in like the 90s and early 2000s following a certain serial killer, but also very reminiscent of the Blair Witches marketing campaign that was very trailblazing at the time, where they made a fictional website and featured all this information on the characters in the film and whatnot.
So very cool to see. They're bringing that back. Neon has been killing it with the marketing. Furthermore, for another film that's going to be coming out soon this in August, Cuckoo.
Cuckoo. Neon has also taken Cuckoo's marketing a step further and they also made a website that is for the fictional resort in the film that we see in the trailer. And they also made a fake LinkedIn profile for Dan Stevens character in the film.
So very cool to look into that as well. I am really excited for that movie. And one last cool marketing thing we've been seeing as well for a new horror movie coming out is for Alien Romulus.
That one has also just been kept to trailer so far that I've seen, but recently at San Diego Comic Con was these videos started coming out of actors walking around Comic Con or sitting around Comic Con with facehuggers, very real like life size practical facehuggers on on their face.
And these actors were running around Comic Con with them on their face, you know, trying to take them off or, you know, they were dead on the floor with these these facehuggers on them and they would actually like kind of inflate and deflate like it was, you know, sucking, sucking the life out of them or some, you know, doing their doing their thing.
That one was really cool. And also there was a guy who had a chestburster practical effect, you know, around Comic Con and that was really dope. And I think we have also been seeing it spread to New York now.
Very cool. And of course, there's the fun popcorn buckets coming out for Alien Romulus as well. So I'm just it's just a big year for horror and a big year for marketing.
So let's get out there and support some more.
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She's dead.
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