10 Movies That Used Insane Gimmicks To Get Attention

In yet another William Castle production, this time he said that his movie would give audiences the "power to punish." Mr. Sardonicus is about a man who robs his father's grave for a buried lottery ticket, and afterwards, he's cursed to wear a constant, horrifying grin. He then carries out awful experiments on people in an attempt to cure his own affliction. 

At the end of the movie, the audience is presented with a poll, and they have to decide if Mr. Sardonicus should be punished for his actions. Each viewer would be given a card, and they'd hold it up with either a thumbs up or thumbs down. William Castle supposedly filmed two endings, and the theatre would play whichever one the audience voted on. The story goes that no audience ever chose not to punish him, though, and so only the one ending was ever screened. 

Since then, Turner Classic Movies has tried and failed to track down the supposed second ending, and it's now believed that it may have never existed. If that's true, the audiences never really decided anything, so the whole gimmick was a complete lie to get attention and it totally worked. Castle, you son of a bitch.

Even without the tricks, this is still an effective and disturbing movie; you'll just have to ignore the weird, out of place polling sequence.