2013 February 06 « HORROR BOOM

We first decided our dream job (on up there in the top five) would be getting to work for/with Dread Central and getting things like THIS in the mail back in 2011 when DC posted a series on the “American Horror Story Artifacts” they were receiving in the mail (for S1). These artifacts, which Dread Central carefully documented with a series of still photos, descriptions, and the story behind these packages sent to them with no return address info other than “The Murder House”. One was an ice-skate, splattered with dried blood and a clump of red matter on the blade of the skate… matted with hair. Another was a stuffed rabbit. Nothing cuddly, though, something that looked like it came from a deranged taxidermist (or a doctor from the 1920s with a ‘Frankenstein complex‘ who had been driven mad by his addiction to ether). This was s stuffed, mounted monstrosity with tanned/cured blood-red hide, no hair, buck teeth that looked more like those of a small shark’s, and disturbingly over-sized, bloodshot eyeballs. This writer–who is working on a piece* about that showstopper of an advertising campaign– would not display it in any room she planned on sleeping in.

We also have yet to see a shitty movie (ParaNorman and District 9 are a couple of excellent examples on going above and beyond to promote something they created)* that took such care and cleverness and craftsmanship sending out really cool boxes (usually mysterious at first) containing items, art, and ‘artifacts’.

So, what does our above jibba-jabba have to do with this? Turns out Stoker (~~unleashed~~ released on March 1, 2013) has also been doing creative promotion! Here’s an (updated) article from Dread Central about exactly what showed up in their mail to promote their movie. Click on the big red link below to read all about it–and even try to figure out why and how the PR/marketing team for Stoker picked this specific item!

UPDATED: What’s in the Box?!? Mystery and Intrigue Arrive at Dread Central! | Horror Movie, DVD, & Book Reviews, News, Interviews at Dread Central.

Your guess is sure as hell as good as ours! Man, what we wouldn’t give to work in an office that receives and gets to open packages like this. Hell, we’d fucking volunteer to work our butts off there for free if they were located anywhere near us…

*which, now that we think of it, are also separate pieces we’ll do a short series on …or a longer series if we find there’s even more genre movies, TV shows and events that use such imaginative marketing than we thought out there (cross your fingers).