10 Desperate Ways To Market Horror Movies

8. Make A Fake Documentary - The Village

The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan
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 and Presenter, 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 day job, his role as 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 and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.