Selling your soul (and a few extra tickets): 8 failed horror movie gimmicks
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Horror film's connection to the carnival sideshow goes deeper than Freaks or Something Wicked This Way Comes. Countless times in the genre's history, when a movie couldn't be sold on the basis of its thrills, visual effects, or abundance of young lovers in compromising positions alone, producers have slipped on their carny barker clothes and hustled audiences in with the promise of some never-before-seen gimmick. On occasion, these actually catch on with the public—some of the earliest hits of 3-D filmmaking were horror movies, and that technology is still spinning titles like The Final Destination into box-office gold—but more often than not, they turn out to be one-scare wonders. (If you're keen on having stuff fly at you, the Uptown Theatre is showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween weekend—the movie's fans would be more than happy to fling actual toast, rice, and toilet paper in your direction.) Here are eight other horror movie gimmicks that weren't nearly as terrifying as their creators thought they would be.
The gimmick: The Fright Break
Used to limited effect in: Homicidal (1961)
Whether you view him as a sub-Hitchcockian huckster or a marketing genius, you have to agree on one thing: William Castle's string of gimmick-laden shockers put butts in the seats of America's movie houses. Even more impressive, every one of Castle's gimmicks topped the one that came before it: House On Haunted Hill's glowing, hovering "Emergo" skeleton begat the randomly buzzing seats of The Tingler, which were in turn bested by the spirit-finding "Illusion-O" viewers of 13 Ghosts. A Psycho rip-off right down to its cross-dressing killer, 1961's Homicidal is capped off by a 45-second "fright break," which allowed patrons too frightened to see the film's conclusion the opportunity to flee to the lobby and ask management for a refund.
Why it never took off: According to John Waters' essay "Whatever Happened To Showmanship," the entirety of Homicidal's first audience took advantage of The Fright Break. Castle refined the concept to prevent any and all refunds, going so far as to introduce "Coward's Corner," a series of yellow-painted embarassments that culminated in the signing of a card stating "I am a bona fide coward." As Waters writes, few moviegoers were willing to suffer Coward's Corner, and even fewer theater-owners were willing to set one up.
The gimmick: All-expenses-paid funeral and burial services
Used to limited effect in: The Screaming Skull (1958)
In 1958, the three main food groups were steak, scotch, and smokes, so the odds that someone might actually die of fright during a movie that "reaches its climax in shocking horror" were pretty good. Castle's Macabre hooked audiences with a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London; American International Pictures did him one better by promising to cover funeral and burial costs for anyone who kicked the bucket during The Screaming Skull.
Why it never took off: The thought of being gnawed to death by the skull of a dead wife could send any money-grubbing wife-murderer to an early grave, but as Mystery Science Theater 3000's Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo discovered, you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a free coffin out of a defunct film studio.
The gimmick: Psychorama
Used to limited effect in: My World Dies Screaming (a.k.a Terror In The Haunted House) (1958)
In the same year that Congress first tried to ban the practice of slipping subliminal messages into advertisements, the producers of My World Dies Screaming cut several hidden images and phrases into their crummy tale of newlyweds who move into an old house that plays a part in the wife's recurring nightmare. Hoping to ramp up the audience's reaction, images such as a devil's face and a troll-like creature with a rat in its mouth flash on the screen during the film's most intense moments (and also some less intense moments, as seen at 1:42 of this un-embeddable YouTube video).
Why it never took off: Despite the insistence of the FCC, various "experts", and future first ladies, research into the effectiveness of subliminal messaging remains inconclusive. Even if it does work, the segment of the population that's into being manipulated doesn't guarantee boffo box office.
The gimmick: HypnoMagic
Used to limited effect in: The Hypnotic Eye (1960)
Then again, you can totally find people willing to be manipulated, so long as you bill that manipulation as "The NEW Audience Participation Thrill That Actually Makes YOU Part of the Show!" Also part of the show: An indiscriminately European hypnotist whose popular revue may be the reason several women have died in the midst of horrifying acts of self-mutilation. (In the movie. There's no way HypnoMagic worked that well.)
Reason it never caught on: Maybe it did work that well?
The gimmick: Hallucinogenic Hypnovision
Used to limited effect in: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964)
The titular creatures (more accurately, "The Poor Slobs Who Go To A Crappy Carnival And Get Hypnotized Then Become Disfigured Murderers") of gutter auteur Ray Dennis Steckler's monster musical didn't just terrorize on the screen—they terrorized from the aisles as well. Ushers dressed as monsters would appear during the sequence of a hypnotic spiral, proceeding to spook moviegoers while being pelted with refreshments.
Why it didn't catch on: The New York Times obituary for Steckler mentions that the director occasionally had to step in and play a monster himself, "until a patron shot him with a pellet gun." Not surprisingly, it was difficult to find ushers willing to take the costumes and the abuse.
The gimmick: Promising $50,000 to the first person who could prove the non-existence of a Martian
Used to limited effect in: It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
Setting the path for Alien while being more liberal with shots of its monster, It! joyfully toyed with Cold War-era paranoia about the space race and unknown, powerful threats of invasion. Throwing fuel on the paranoid fire, United Artists proclaimed on the film's posters that it was willing to pay $50,000—through a "world-renowned insurance company"—to anyone who could offer proof that Mars wasn't harboring a race of hulking, three-clawed, reptilian monsters.
Why it didn't catch on: There's no record of the bounty being claimed, probably because, at the time, the world's telescopes and space exploration equipment were otherwise occupied.
The gimmick: Claiming to feature footage of an actual murder
Used to limited effect in: Snuff (1976)
Grindhouse filmmakers Michael and Roberta Findlay churned out the low-budget feature The Slaughter in 1971 as a way to piggyback off the public interest surrounding the Manson Family murder trials. (Grindhouse filmmakers: Always keepin' it classy.) Their distributor, Allan Shackleton, didn't approve of the film, and shelved it for several years. Five years later, rumors that the FBI had begun seizing films of actresses being murdered on camera must have turned on a proverbial lightbulb for Shackleton: He removed the credits from Slaughter, tacked on a gory, verité-style climax where the camera pulls back and "the film crew" disembowels a look-alike of a Slaughter cast member. After passing Snuff off as one of those films the FBI was attempting to seize, major controversy and box-office receipts followed.
Why it didn't take off: It sort of did, in the form of the video-store staple Faces Of Death and its many sequels, but not too many narrative filmmakers were willing to follow Shackleton's path directly. Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero Deodato sort of did, when he refused to confirm that the far more realistic violence in his movie was staged. Deodato was arrested in his native Italy and charged with murder, which is probably why no one's gone down that particular road since.
The gimmick: The interactive movie
Used to limited effect in: Return To House On Haunted Hill (2007)
Like television before it, video gaming presents a challenge to film's hold on the public conscience. This time, however, it's less about convenience and more about viewers relationship with what they're watching: Why enjoy your entertainments passively when you can interact with them? Drop the remote and pick up a controller, Grandpa! But with the Blu-ray and HD DVD releases of Return To House On Haunted Hill, Dark Castle Films declared, "No, Grandpa, hang onto your remote, then hang 10 with this direct-to-video sequel! Tubular!" Acknowledging its debt to William Castle (but just barely), the film's Navigational Cinema feature lets viewers toy with the fate of its blandly attractive cast in a way that's far more interactive than Castle's own "Punishment Poll."
Why it hasn't taken off: For the same reason Choose Your Own Adventure books haven't replaced traditional novels and those full-motion video-based games in the 1990s didn't kill the Mario Brothers: For all their promises of limitless outcomes, the choices are ultimately stifling. (Walk through the dark, scary doorway, or keep going down the dark, scary hall?) Also, have you seen Mr. Payback? Yikes.
