10 Desperate Ways To Market Horror Movies

9. Showcase Torture & Death - Captivity

Sam Jackson Snakes On A Plane
Lionsgate

While Saw is credited as being the launching point for the torture porn subgenre, it was the films that followed James Wan's 2004 picture that really turned audiences off.

In fairness to Saw, it had a 'less is more' approach and didn't actually physically show most of its terrors. For other movies that came after it, they scrapped that approach and piled on the gore and depravity as a way to shock.

By 2007, torture porn was taking its last significant breaths, yet that didn't stop Roland Joffé's Captivity from doing its best to whip up a frenzy with its violence and sinister themes - all highlighted by a truly pathetic ad campaign.

Running across Los Angeles billboards and New York taxicabs, Captivity used four images to sell itself. Labelled "Abduction", "Confinement", "Torture" and "Termination", this artwork depicted star Elisha Cuthbert in various stages of despair - a gloved hand over her face, stuck behind a chain fence, her face covered and tubes up her nose, and being dead.

This was gross, classless and led to a huge public backlash that resulted in all ads being removed, distributor Lionsgate putting all of the blame on production company After Dark Films, After Dark Films proclaiming these posters as an "accident", and the release of the movie delayed.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.