8. Catfish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bg5r7hTldR0 Here's a film that didn't really need any underhanded tactics to market, because the film had two great in-built mysteries, chiefly a) is the film real or not? and b) what happens when the guy meets up with this girl? However, the distributors tried to dupe us anyway, misrepresenting the tone of the trailer as completely different from the final product. While the film's climax is undeniably unsettling, this trailer posits it as a straight-up slasher horror film, implying that the guys will come across a murderer or something, and ironically this probably turned the target audience off of the movie, given how provocative and thought-provoking it seemed for the first half of the trailer. As a result, the film wasn't a box office success despite strong reviews, and only found an audience when released on home video, but this is a classic case of a distributor having absolutely no idea of how to market their film. We can't help but think that this harmed its awards chances as well, even if the debate about its reality (or non-reality) was a factor in that anyway.
Shaun Munro
Contributor
Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.
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