I’m a fan of classic horror movies, and so I have a lot of
books on them. In these books, there is the blueprint for success laid out by
the guys who marketed White Zombie and Freaks, and then the guys who did later stuff like Blood
Feast and Satan movies, and the one thing
they all have in common is to advertise salacious stuff near religious
communities, because there are always repressed people there who want a thrill,
and if the movie is lucky, protest groups will show up and give it free
publicity. Then, later movie people became even more sophisticated and would
provide their own fake protest group against the movie to drum up more
publicity for it. Then tons of people would show up, because otherwise they
might not have heard of the film.
This is a well-known strategy for anything edgy, from movies
to music to any traveling show: drum up some kind of protest, and all the young
people would come out to see it. (This tactic even appears in some old
movies as well for circus shows and fortune-tellers, predating even its use for movies, I think!) It even works when the protests
are real, like with The Last Temptation of Christ. But not every metal band and independent horror
movie can afford their own protest group. And that’s why I think a good
business model for hick towns and religious communities would be to have a fake
protest group for hire that would come out and protest any band or movie or
thing what came to town and paid them to come protest against their thing.
(They’d both make a killing, I’m
sure!)
