forward Blair Witch Project Premiered in the cinema in 1999, a 44-minute long-term simulation The Curse of the Witch Blair Broadcast Science Fiction Channel Earlier that year. It’s a pretty powerful introduction to the myth of the titular witch and how it’s related to the disappearance of three missing students at the Cinema Center. It examines the history of the region, how witchcraft adapted to it, and the serial killers Rustin Parr and Burkitsville 7 of 1940 (the child Parr was accused of killing under the influence of a witch). This is really terrible. As a 12-year-old at the time, I was so absorbed by it that I thought it was real. Of course, this was before the internet blast, and the vandals ruined most of everything.
Of course, it’s a promotional strategy, but it also has an extra effect: world building. It does a lot, those who see it curse A richer and terrifying experience was gained from the actual film in advance. Plus the missing student poster Craftsman Entertainment (The publisher of the movie) was created with fake police reports and websites, and it was all too convincing when accessing entertainment news and actor profiles.
Will today’s simulcast be concealed as a real documentary? I don’t think so. Despite our current relationship with fake news as a concept of truth and rise, no matter how we dress up in “the truth,” we still don’t want to entertain the authenticity of horror movies. We tend to believe that the pedophile ring runs under the pizza shop rather than the witches looking for pet serial killers in the woods (although you will still find some pets that can be done).
However, in this case, we can see what the movie looks like Oz Perkins‘ Long legs And the upcoming arms (directed by Zach Creggerthe thought behind it barbarian) are looking for other ways to use promotional content as a world-building tool to drive excitement for its distribution. Rather than trying to trick viewers into thinking that their films are “real”, they use these strategies to extend the story with carefully selected details that news sites can enable them to start their theory sooner.
The recent example is arms. Before the release of the first official trailer, the link caused a link to a news site called “Maybrook News” to begin to circulate. It provides an article and several short videos that record a set of 3 missingroad The grading person at 2:17 am left the house and ran until late at night.
Immediately, we show us the central mysteries of this story, which is actually a discussion about why these kids escape in the first place. These videos alone exude an atmosphere of authenticity, helping to create a very sinister tone from the beginning, and things get darker once we know more.
After the trailer was discarded, another article was published. This is a teacher named Ms. Gandy. She teaches the disappearing children, which is explained in the trailer, but there is an extra detail in the Maya Brook News article that complicates things. Gandy is a transfer member. An incident in which she attended a school prompted the change. Is this something to do with disappearance somehow?
The doors opened by this information can extend the public life of the movie. Sudden, arms Become a more complex storytelling experience, and its survival time exceeds the runtime. In addition to this, another article found on the website shows that movies exist in the same universe barbarian A new way of exploration emerges in front of readers.
Long legs I took this route last year, which proved to be fruitful. Its world-building promotion includes a very 90s website that contains reports on the murder of these families, with a recording of strange sounds. With the mystery of the trailer, this leaves viewers addicted to pathological curiosity through crime scene photos and other disturbing images. It brings a more disturbing presence to the killer as readers can bring all of this to the first time watching in the cinema.
Genius stroke Long legs But campaigns are phone numbers for messages people can call killers. It’s short, but plaguing, and even more frightening as the production decides to keep the killer’s look secret. It all has to do with the overall Satanic feeling that the film is designed to target. It dyes the ritual quality of crime and the ritual quality of the people responsible for them, and even affects our appreciation of pagan symbols that create movie titles and other promotions.
Again, this marketing strategy leads to experience beyond the movie screen. It made detectives create detectives from fans and led to a series of articles from different media (including this one) that preserve the film on people’s lips. It’s hard not to have Long legs You will recover in your mind before premiering. Ultimately, this makes the movie even more horrible.
arms and Long legs Separate yourself from other attempts to creative marketing by connecting viral content with stories. They did not follow the Tiktok dance route, nor were they used for traditional film merchandise. They found the secret component in world construction. There is nothing wrong with buzzing through dance or memes. Any more attention to your product is better (see M3gan). Just the two movies mentioned here begin and somehow enrich the narrative-level cinematic experience. This is very special. If future horror movies follow suit, this is a new golden age for promoting world construction.
