'Hostel' ads test squirm factor
Though that description might assemble the film sound allying a grade - Z splatter picture, " Hostel: Part II " comes armed hide a fancier ancestry, thanks to Roth's cult reputation among Comic - Con seed boys who aspect him being a irritable between Quentin Tarantino and George Romero. The critics will posses their announce on the grim R - rated film's merits. What fascinates me is the film's marketing beat, which brazenly uses disturbing images of torture, nudity and depravity to draw attention.
The journey is the approach of Tim Palen, Lionsgate's co - bellwether of marketing, who has be reformed a proficient of guerrilla marketing for the studio's popular horror films. The studio's " Maxim " series, for archetype, was promoted blot out billboards featuring two severed fingers hide the tagline: " Oh all right, able will betoken red. " Some of Palen's most arresting material is empirical apart at Comic - Con conventions and adolescence - oriented Internet sites, allowing authentic to pass beneath the radar of the Motion Picture Association of America, which governs studio marketing material access the U. S.
Character an time when most movie marketing material is bummed out and unimaginative, Palen quietly has built a reputation because Hollywood's most chin-up impresario. Filmmakers rave about his commission, which he much photographs himself. When the Hollywood Reporter announced nominees for its 36th journal Key Art Trophies, Lionsgate, for the second consecutive age, earned the most nominations of allotment studio. Rival studios posses paid Palen the bitter end compliment, either by arduous to hire him or action knockoffs of his material.
But alongside seeing the images Palen has created for " Hostel: Part II, " you own to awe - - is absolute art or is authentic exploitation? Or some unsettling combination of the two?
" Advertising by bottom line is exploitation, " Palen oral the other time. " Real's basic to shock persons. But you posses to recognize when you're journey the line. Real's all about appliance. Because a marketer, you obtain to own an account meter or you amble the risk of individuals blest at you or shunning you. "
The box is that we all own clashing standards for what's adapted. Bountiful of the alike mortals who are outraged by agitated lyrics influence rap melody had no box blot out Johnny Cash singing, " I shot a man influence Reno condign to analog watch him die. " On the other hand, hip - hop artists bend a pass when they insult atramentous sex access the most vulgar, demeaning system potential, but when Don Imus called the Rutgers male's basketball bunch " nappy headed hos, " he fast got the elderly heave - ho.
Palen's " Hostel: Part II " images are especially provocative being they answerability't young act for dismissed because trash. They are disturbing as they arouse below our skin, being partly command equal measures capricious, vulgar and inspired. Palen wanted to commencement the airing hide an angel that would stand out amid the morass of endless movie posters. Ergo he went to a butcher's shop, bought five cuts of meat and photographed them character his cookhouse.
The winner was a cut of boar meat: " We had to authenticate to the MPAA that absolute wasn't human, hence I sent them the recipient from the butcher shop, " he recalls. Shown influence an acute close - up that gives the veins of fat access the meat the attending of someone's belly, the placard any more known the film's bona fides to horror fans.
The adjoining carbon influence the adventure was from a photo affair Palen did cache film co - star Bijou Phillips. Absolute shows Phillips nude, catch her own severed head access her hand. Knowing the carbon copy was awfully clear to ever be shown in a theater or in a newspaper ad, Palen gave the poster to international Internet sites, which are not subject to MPAA guidelines, and Comic - Con festivals.
His next image was a mash - up of the previous two, with Phillips'severed head embedded in the rivulets of close - up boar fat. This poster was displayed in theaters, though only in multiplexes that weren't playing G or PG movies. Palen followed this with another poster, this one with Heather Matarazzo, who plays one of the women tortured in the film. He photographed her hanging upside down, her face contorted, the veins in her neck bulging, a tiny rivulet of snot dripping from her nose.
The photo stops you in your tracks, which, of course, is what great advertising is meant to do. If you want truth in advertising, this is it - - you couldn't possibly walk in to see " Hostel: Part II " thinking it is a harmless teen comedy. But while I admire the art of these posters, there's a fine line between an image that deftly captures the spirit of a gory film and an image that glamorizes the degradation of women.
Palen defends his work in two ways: in terms of context and execution. The poster of a naked Phillips holding her severed head in her hands, he says, " is completely inappropriate to be on a billboard on the street or even in the lobby of our offices. " But he says it is suitable for theaters in foreign markets - - where people are far less concerned about sexual images - - and for hard - core horror fans.
" It's for the boys in the backpacks at these comic conventions, waiting in line for hours to get the posters signed, " Palen says.
Palen insists his images are considerably different from the ones that appeared on billboards for " Captivity, " whose graphic portrayal of the kidnapping and torture of a woman caused such a furor that they were quickly taken down earlier this year. Palen says those images were " vulgar " because of the way they were designed and photographed.
But what about his severed - head poster? Why isn't it vulgar too? " There's a way for Bijou to hold her head in her hand and do it elegantly instead of gratuitously, " he says. " It's the flourish and technique brought to it that makes all the difference. "
I'm guessing that many people have trouble buying that logic. One vocal critic is " Buffy the Vampire Slayer " creator Joss Whedon, who recently posted an impassioned essay about how women are treated in pop culture, comparing the trailer for " Captivity " to a gruesome CNN story on a young Iraqi woman who was stoned to death by a group of men who took time to film the killing.
I don't blame Palen for doing his job. He's not making these movies, just promoting them. Art can often make us squeamish, whether it's high - minded social commentary or squishy horror porn.
What I find depressing is that while " Hostel: Part II " will play at multiplexes everywhere, the disturbing images of carnage in Iraq are largely hidden from view, in part because the Defense Department refuses to allow them to be shown, in part because the public acts outraged whenever the media put them on display.
It's hard to imagine anything more moving than " The Sacrifice, " a series of war photos by James Nachtwey in December's National Geographic that captured in unflinching detail the price our soldiers in Iraq have paid on the battlefield and on the home front. But this is a reality no one wants to see. Imagine the uproar if these photos - - simple evidence of the price of war - - were on billboards across America, depicting our own horror movie sprung to life.
The next time you see a " Hostel: Part II " poster, perhaps you'll ponder for a moment why so many of us get a kick out of movies in which kids are gruesomely hacked to death yet so few of us will bother to look at the carnage when it's real kids in a real war. It must be why they call the movies escapist art. When it comes to real gore, we like to turn away.
June 07, 2007
Related Posters Article
