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One could make an argument that most advances in cinema like color, sound, and widescreen are gimmicks, but there's been some nifty gimmicky gimmicks in movies. The king of the gimmick, of course, is William Castle. Here's a rundown of everything he tried out: The Tingler - "Percepto" - Selected seats had a vibrating buzzer attached that would go off at timed moments (the film also has an incredible color insert) House on Haunted Hill - "Emergo" - Near the end of the film, a plastic or inflated skeleton would slide on a wire over the audience in the theater. 13 Ghosts - "Illusion-O" - Sequences with ghosts were printed in a variation of Technicolor that resulted in blue ghosts on a red background. Viewers were given a "ghost viewer" with two colored strips of plastic to look through. Often mistaken for 3-D. Mr. Sardonicus - "Punishment Poll" - The film stopped near the end so the audience could be "polled" into whether the title character should be punished (there was only one ending) Macabre offered life insurance policies for viewers, Homicidal had a Fright Break to allow people to leave the audience before the really scary part, Some other films got into the action. Scent of Mystery (aka Holiday in Spain) was the first... and last Smell-o-Vision film. Scents were pumped into auditoriums at specific moments. The Screaming Skull opens with a short sequence boasting that American International would gladly pay for funeral expenses of anyone who died of fright during the movie. Alfred Hitchcock mandated that Psycho be shown with absolutely no admittance after the film started. Theaters would have cardboard standups of Hitchcock looking at his watch, with a sign indicating the next showing. John Waters paid homage to Castle with Polyester - with "Odorama" scratch-and-sniff cards to be used at specific times. As expected with a Waters film, scents included dirty socks and skunk. Clue is unique in that it was released with three different endings depending on where you saw it. For home video, they were edited together, but the DVD and Blu-ray editions allow you to watch it with a random ending (as well as the VHS/cable edit). There's plenty more. What are some of your favorite movie gimmicks?
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# ? Jun 7, 2018 03:27 |
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# ? May 5, 2024 20:05 |
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Egbert Souse posted:
lol
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# ? Jun 8, 2018 17:02 |
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IIRC, Castle claimed that they actually filmed an alternate ending for Mr. Sardonicus. Though since no known copy exists and Castle was a notorious showman, it's safe to assume he made it up. Does Cinerama count as a gimmick? I always thought that was a really cool idea to make the cinema experience markedly different from watching a film at home.
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# ? Jun 8, 2018 23:15 |
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Samuel Clemens posted:IIRC, Castle claimed that they actually filmed an alternate ending for Mr. Sardonicus. Though since no known copy exists and Castle was a notorious showman, it's safe to assume he made it up. There's no way Castle would have shot extra footage. I'm more of thinking of gimmicks that were only used on one or two films. Cinerama was a gimmick at first, except This is Cinerama was the highest grossing film of 1952 (41 million in 1952 money) from playing in only one theater in the world and spawned four sequels. Not to mention jumpstarting the widescreen revolution. Though, I'd consider some of the more specialized Cinerama-inspired systems to be gimmicks like Circle-Vision 360. Or something like Chelsea Girls, which used dual projectors and randomized reel orders.
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# ? Jun 8, 2018 23:42 |
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Sensurround I remember seeing Earthquake in a theater with this building-destroying audio gimmick. The main problem was that the regular audio was bad while the shaking part was pretty cool.
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# ? Jun 9, 2018 01:14 |
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Egbert Souse posted:Clue is unique in that it was released with three different endings depending on where you saw it. For home video, they were edited together, but the DVD and Blu-ray editions allow you to watch it with a random ending (as well as the VHS/cable edit). I don't know if you'd call it a movie gimmick or just cutthroat capitalism, but Demolition Man got released theatrically with 2 different cuts, one where Taco Bell won the "fast food franchise wars" and another cut where the victor was Pizza Hut, the conceit being that both are owned by the same corporation.
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# ? Jun 9, 2018 03:15 |
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It wasn't theatrical, but the DVD release of Final Destination 3 had a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style mode where you could kind of shuffle up how the movie went, and even save a character who died in the theatrical version. Most new footage was more gruesome than the theatrical cut thanks to a not being rated. It was quite a lot of fun.
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# ? Jun 9, 2018 03:21 |
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The "separation shot" in Goodbye to Language was worth the price of admission. I've never seen it, but Mr. Payback sounds insane: Roger Ebert posted:The armrest of your seat contains a little console with red, orange and green buttons. You do a test run, clicking them. The lights go down, the "Interfilm" trademark appears on the screen, and an announcer encourages you to talk, scream, shout and snort during the following film: "Feel free to generally behave as if you were raised in a barn." "Mr. Payback," the first "interactive movie," is supposed to inspire these reactions because you, the lucky audience member, will be able to make key decisions affecting the progress of the story.
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# ? Jun 9, 2018 04:03 |
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Clue was famously distributed with three endings. Theaters would (in theory) list a screening as being A, B, or C, the idea being you'd want to see all three. (They were of course strung back-to-back for the video release.) The local library has a copy of the movie Storybook, which makes the ending sort of a CYOA thing: when it gets to that point it says "If you noticed the missing revolver, turn to page..." etc.
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# ? Jun 9, 2018 06:00 |
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The Tingler is loose in the thread! Scream! SCREEEEEAM FOR YOUR LIIIIIVES!!!
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# ? Jun 10, 2018 00:03 |
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Erotic Wakes posted:The Tingler is loose in the thread! Scream! SCREEEEEAM FOR YOUR LIIIIIVES!!! Gilbert Gottfrieds impression of this is amazing. I really wish gimmicks like that would make a comeback. Going to the movies needs to be an event again.
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# ? Jun 10, 2018 01:37 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2018 14:48 |
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Love the second one "The most horrifying film ever made!"* *Rated PG
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# ? Jun 11, 2018 16:31 |
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I think John Waters once said he'd consider someone puking at one of his movies to be akin to a standing ovation.
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# ? Jun 11, 2018 17:03 |
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Zombie (aka Zombi 2) had the same gimmick in America. Actually fits for a Fulci film, though the only *really* nauseating moment I've seen in one of his is the bit in City of the Living Dead where suddenly a window flies open and maggots are thrown over the whole cast.
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# ? Jun 11, 2018 17:58 |
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I went to a screening of Raw where I was told they were handing out barf bags to the crowd, but when I got mine, it was just a paper lunch bag with the word "RAW" written in sharpie on the side. They did hand out genuine reproduction barf bags at the Cutthroats Nine screening I went to tho.
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# ? Jun 11, 2018 18:00 |
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Handing out barf bags seems like the go-to marketing ploy for films that want to capitalise on their reputation of being extreme. Ichi the Killer used the same gimmick at the film festival in Toronto.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 14:59 |
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Samuel Clemens posted:Handing out barf bags seems like the go-to marketing ploy for films that want to capitalise on their reputation of being extreme. Ichi the Killer used the same gimmick at the film festival in Toronto. According to a friend of mine, they should have handed one out for the Vacation remake. He told me that in the scene where the family is bathing/swimming in waste, a guy several seats from him started vomiting into his popcorn bag.
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# ? Jun 14, 2018 17:44 |
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Hmmm, how could they live up to this kind of hype... the movie in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxFGLTXI1ZY
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# ? Jun 19, 2018 17:35 |
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Well, did it live up to the hype?
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# ? Jun 19, 2018 17:51 |
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ruddiger posted:I don't know if you'd call it a movie gimmick or just cutthroat capitalism, but Demolition Man got released theatrically with 2 different cuts, one where Taco Bell won the "fast food franchise wars" and another cut where the victor was Pizza Hut, the conceit being that both are owned by the same corporation. I think they only swapped out the audio though. Last time I saw the film, it was really obvious Sandra Bullock wasn't saying "Taco Bell" even though that's what the bad quality ADR said.
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 06:46 |
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ruddiger posted:I went to a screening of Raw where I was told they were handing out barf bags to the crowd, but when I got mine, it was just a paper lunch bag with the word "RAW" written in sharpie on the side. My theatre did that too, but they filled with lollies including gummy hands, teeth, and ears, and it was awesome. Shame about the movie.
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 08:53 |
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# ? Jun 20, 2018 10:25 |
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davidspackage posted:I think they only swapped out the audio though. Last time I saw the film, it was really obvious Sandra Bullock wasn't saying "Taco Bell" even though that's what the bad quality ADR said. I think it was because Taco Bell doesn't exist in a lot of the countries the film was released in, but Pizza Hut does.
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# ? Jun 21, 2018 01:48 |
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I got a 'thing' you can work, buddy.
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# ? Jun 21, 2018 02:00 |
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davidspackage posted:I think they only swapped out the audio though. Last time I saw the film, it was really obvious Sandra Bullock wasn't saying "Taco Bell" even though that's what the bad quality ADR said. Other way around, she's obviously not saying Pizza Hut https://youtu.be/gpRzusd9Yi8 Stallone's ADR is super weird too
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# ? Jun 21, 2018 04:55 |
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# ? May 5, 2024 20:05 |
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If we're going for 42nd Street style theater gimmicks... quote:G.G. Staff and friends prove that some people will do anything for a buck on board the traveling Butchermobile. Clockwise from upper left: Outside the world-renowned Lyric Theater as the natives get restless; oversexed nurses flash some meat for the doctor outside the Embassy 49th St. Theater; A disguised Michael Weldon fingers G.G. editor outside the Fabian Theater; Actors and unidentified skeleton insult passing commuters outside the port authority bus terminal; Dr. Butcher (Gary Hertz) demonstrates unethical surgical practices; the Butchermobile ruins business for Porky's at the National Twin. Severin included barf bags with their blu ray release of the movie too.
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# ? Jun 21, 2018 19:27 |