8 Worst And Most Desperate Movie Publicity Stunts Ever

The whole “torture porn” era was a rather regrettable cycle for the horror genre, which saw a wave of movies where characters are killed in the most demeaning ways possible. The original Saw is credited with this movement, despite the original featuring little in the way of torture or explicit gore.

This sub-genre was already dying when Captivity came along, and the controversy surrounding its advertisements probably helped turned audiences off it even more. The story follows a model who is kidnapped by a mysterious tormentor, and she has to figure out a way to escape. In the original cut there actually wasn’t much gore to be had, but the producer shot and inserted some torture scenes to spice it up.

He also approved an ad campaign that showed a woman being abducted, tortured and murdered. Joss Whedon led a campaign against the film because of this, claiming it gleefully promoted violence against women. Since the ad wasn't approved the MPAA punished the film by refusing to rate it until a certain date, which caused its release to be delayed. Kinda shows not all publicity is good publicity.