10 Desperate Ways To Market Horror Movies

8. Make A Fake Documentary - The Village

Sam Jackson Snakes On A Plane
NBCUniversal

The Village was a hugely important film in the career of M. Night Shyamalan at the time of its release.

After receiving universal praise for The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, Shyamalan's 2002 Signs split opinion. And so, the movie that came after Signs - as in, The Village - was a pivotal one in proving whether or not the filmmaker was as good as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable had suggested.

A period picture about a small community whose residents daren't go into the nearby woods for fear of the creatures that lie within, The Village was ultimately a so-so affair. Away from the movie itself, one element received hugely negatively was using a three-hour fake documentary on Shyamalan to promote the movie.

Titled The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/director teamed with Sci-Fi Channel to make a documentary about how he's able to communicate with spirits after dying for 30 minutes as a youngster. This doc painted Shyamalan as an intense, erratic, short-tempered, mysterious figure and was backed up by reports from Johnny Depp, Adrian Brody and others.

When Sci-Fi's Bonnie Hammer eventually revealed this was merely a "guerrilla marketing" stunt to garner press for The Village, it left many - including Sci-Fi's parent company NBCUniversal - extremely irked.

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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.