News
A24’s Approach to Viral Marketing for ‘Hereditary’ is a Little Creepy
Currently, “hype-trains” seem to be in abundance, with movies being “so scary that people just can’t finish them.” This is a marketing tactic that has been around for ages, and has never seemed to fail in getting crowds to flock en masse to the next biggest fright-fest.
While there have been some marketing strategies that have promoted outside the ads within computer and TV screens, it seems safe to say that few advertisements will literally stay with you. This is, until A24 launched their recent viral marketing campaign with their newest horror film, Hereditary.
No animals were harmed. @HereditaryMovie #SXSW pic.twitter.com/ENRXtbty63
— A24 (@A24) March 12, 2018
A24’s Hereditary premiered at SXSW this past week, with reviews swarming onto the web praising how unnervingly terrifying it is, along with the film fairing noticeably well among critical acclaim.
However, while the praise is certainly welcomed by A24, the studio wanted to send some chillingly lasting impressions outside of the reviews. But how would they do this? Reported by A.V. Club, A24 decided to promote the film immediately after its premier at SXSW by sending petit, unnerving, unsettling dolls to select viewers.
Got home to find this creepy @HereditaryMovie shit on my front porch! No postage!!!! Someone hide me! pic.twitter.com/MpO1iQ6Rv4
— Eric Vespe (@EricVespe) March 12, 2018
Following the night of the Hereditary premier, viewers opened their doors to find these tiny, little, hellish “toys” sitting upon their door steps. The dolls were accompanied with tags and labels inscribed with the viewers name, along with “Will you take care of me?” Pictures of the dolls have been circulating the “Twitter-sphere,” but it would seem there are many more in stock than the ones sent out.
A24 uploaded a photo to their twitter displaying their collection of nightmare-fuel dolls, one of the tweets saying “collect them all.”
collect them all #Hereditary pic.twitter.com/64gwGLehyO
— A24 (@A24) March 12, 2018
While there is no confirmation yet as to how each doll ties to the film, or if A24 will be sending more of these films out, one doll in particular does stand out in its relevance to Hereditary.
Barry Jenkins received a doll after his viewing of the film, and while this is speculation, his doll stands out among the rest for a certain reason.
Man @A24 play too much 😭 After seeing the TERRIFYING @HereditaryMovie at a midnight screening last night (and checking every shadow of my room before going to bed), I woke up with THIS waiting outside my hotel room. Y’all play WAAAAAAY tew damn much 😭 pic.twitter.com/sKHQuuuIWa
— Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins) March 13, 2018
Jenkins’ has an affiliation with A24 since his film Moonlight was distributed by the company, but this ties into the interest in this particular doll. The doll Jenkins’ posted appears to be a bird with sea shell wings, a severed bird head, and gold-ish beads that are arranged in a way to look like blonde hair.
Why this stands out is due to the daughter’s room in the trailer, which features a plethora of bird themed decorations, as well as the scene where a bird smashes into her classroom’s window and is then followed by the scene of her decapitating it with scissors. The hair-beads arguably bear resemblance to the daughter and mother’s hair style (the daughter’s blonde hair being hereditary, in this case).
Whether this specific doll is meant to pay homage to small details in the film, and if it was meant to be sent to Jenkins’ due to his association is (of course) speculation, but viral marketing has certainly proven its efficiency for A24 and their film.
For those who are “infected,” by this viral marketing, then it’s important to know Hereditary will be released in theaters nationwide on June 8th of this year.
I you would like to know more about Hereditary, you should absolutely read up on our review it from the SXSW premier! However, if you want to go into the film completely blind, but want more A24 related news, check out our article on A24 purchasing the horror script based on the popular short story for “Cat Person.”
Sources: A.V. Club
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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Movies
‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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News
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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