10 Reasons Blair Witch Is A Crushing Disappointment
3. The Marketing Hype It Could Never Live Up To
Movie studios are by their nature going for the aggressive, hard sell when it comes to their latest projects, and the horror genre has been particularly obnoxious in this regard recently.
Who can forget when the 2013 Evil Dead remake's posters arrogantly claimed it was "The most terrifying film you will ever experience?" only for it to be a mildly above-average horror flick?
Blair Witch's trailers took a similarly irritating approach, using hilariously overzealous critic pull-quotes such as "a new beginning for horror films", "a truly terrifying cinematic experience" and most outrageously, "one of the scariest movies ever made."
It's an undeniably clever move by Lionsgate, who premiered the movie at this summer's Comic-Con when people still believed it was an original film called The Woods. That huge surprise no doubt enhanced the experience for the horror critics in attendance, some of whom are responsible for these aforementioned over-the-top comments.
Though the movie's reviews have since levelled out, it's fair to say that the pre-release hype was largely intended to get butts in seats, and given how the horror genre is rarely deterred by bad reviews, it seems like those rapturous claims have proven largely effective.
Lionsgate obviously won't care that it made the film overhyped and left audiences disappointed, because when a movie costs just $5 million, a juicy opening weekend can be enough to generate a colossal amount of profit.
Surprise, surprise, a movie's marketing lied to audiences. Who knew?