Immaculate: How to Sell Horror 101

by Cláudio Alves

This Wednesday, April 3rd, a selection of theaters in the US will be selling tickets for Immaculate at the devilish price of $6.66. This promotion, devised by NEON in partnership with AMC, Regal, Marcus, and Harkins Theaters, is another ingenious step in the movie's pitch-perfect campaign. Horror is an easy sell, as the industry seems to re-discover every six months or so, but the Immaculate team has outdone themselves and surpassed most expectations. The Sydney Sweeney vehicle, which also counts with her as producer, has proven a word-of-mouth hit, slashing a bloody streak across the holy season that combines Easter, Ramadhan, Passover and the new Beyoncé release – thank you for the joke, Ramy Youssef…

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The King's Profanity Free Speech?

Was Harvey Weinstein just missing his old Harvey Scissorhands moniker (culled from his love of demanding cuts from the movies he'd bought from his days at Miramax)? A couple of days ago the story was making the rounds that The King's Speech would be reedited to get a family-friendlier MPAA rating. I ignored it because it seemed like a publicity stunt but like all good publicity stunts (if that's what it was) it stuck in my head. It's such a strange idea, to reedit a movie while it's playing. But perhaps it's no stranger than the R rating the film won in the first place. The last time I heard the naughty F word used so innocuously in a movie was Four Weddings and a Funeral when there was a string of them for comic effect when people were running late to one of those multiple weddings -- I don't remember which.  Or is just yet another publicity stunt to keep people talking about The King's Speech about which maybe there's not that much to talk about as it's entertaining but not exactly deep or as editorial ready as its main rivals to Oscar glory?

Between this and Blue Valentine I'm really beginning to wonder if the MPAA wasn't actually dissolved a year ago and is now just a front organization for the Weinstein Company's publicity department.