Smiley

This film almost defies reviewing, it's that bad. Seriously, I've been working on this post for months I am finding it nearly impossible to compose a cohesive review. Really, that should give you some indication of what I'm dealing with here.

In a word, Smiley is terrible. Other words I might use to describe it are disappointing, moronic, and downright stupid.

The film is about a group of Internet jerks who create an online urban legend named Smiley and then manipulate a girl into thinking Smiley is real, believing this will cause the Smiley legend to spread. Truth be told, it's not a bad idea but the movie removes all plausibility, replacing it with sheer idiocy.

Smiley operates like an online version of Bloody Mary: type "I did it for the lulz" three times into video chat, and Smiley kills the person you're talking to. At Proxy's insistence, Ashley picks a victim on Chatroulette and watches in horror as he dies at his computer.

It's insulting to the viewer that Ashley would be so gullible to believe that she actually killed someone with Internet magic. Worse still, it's just Proxy's good luck that Ashley is mentally and emotionally unstable making her the perfect mark for their ridiculous scam. One contrivance is permissible--I can let the crazy slide--but Smiley just heaps impossibility on top of implausibility like a fat man at a buffet.

Here's the thing: the group that created Smiley wiped the Internet clean of all evidence of his existence, and the girl who dies as a result of their shenanigans appears, to all the world, to have committed suicide. There is simply no way for her death to be connected to the Smiley legend. For all their scheming, Proxy and her friends are defeated by their own overwrought plan.

Also, the movie cheats. It cheats its audience and it cheats itself. I knew this would be bad going in, I just had no idea it'd be so goddamn stupid to boot.

Peripheral Fears

Hacked road sign.

For a lot of reasons, Count Vardulon is a weirdo.  One of those reasons is his habit of walking out on movie trailers.  I'm not going to get into why he does this, but his staunch refusal to learn anything about a film before it comes out sometimes results in his missing out on some truly creative and impressive movie marketing campaigns.  The film business is inherently risky--there's no real guarantee you'll get a return on your investment--so studios dump obscene amounts of money into marketing their films, aggressively campaigning for asses in seats.

Some of the best marketing, however, takes place outside the cinema or television arena.  By turning their attention to the Internet, some filmmakers have succeeded in building a reality around their product through websites and online video--a reality that legitimizes their filmic creation and expands the world of the film beyond the confines of the cinema.  Not only does the potential audience learn about the upcoming movie, but people are actively engaged in the film's story before it hits theatres.  Moreover, the film's online presence helps keep people interested after their movie-going experience has ended.

The first and perhaps best example of this marketing technique is the campaign for The Blair Witch Project (1999).  The movie purports to be found-footage that documents three friends' final days before their disappearance.  Around the time the movie came out, videos were available on-line that lent further credence to the "reality" of the film.  News stories, documentary footage, and police reports all supported the claims made by BWP's disclaimer--that it's all true.  For weeks after the film's release people believed, fully and completely, the movie was real, and their (for lack of a better term) gullibility speaks not only to the effectiveness of cinema verite-style horror, but to the persuasiveness of a well-executed marketing campaign.

Similar in style to BWP, but different in execution and intent, was the campaign for another found-footage mocumentary, Cloverfield (2008).  Capitalizing on social networking, Cloverfield's characters had (and still have) MySpace pages, which managed to give them a life that extended beyond that which exists onscreen.  In much the same way BWP's satellite videos and websites convinced us Heather, Mike, and Josh were real people who really went missing, Cloverfield used the Internet to breathe life into its creation.  Additionally, the Cloverfield world was further expanded upon by way of websites for companies that exist in the film, and through the availability of Slusho!* tee-shirts.

More recently, The Crazies (2010) followed in the footsteps of both BWP and Cloverfield but met with less media success, which is unfortunate given the creative nature of their campaign.  A regular website exists for the film, and from there it is possible to link to the imaginary town of Odgen Marsh.  Arguably, this linkage serves to break the suspension of disbelief, but the Odgen Marsh website is an excellent facsimile of a real small-town website, complete with low-rent design and layout; it's not hard to believe such a place exists.  I found the site via different means, however.  The URL appears at the end of the movie credits with a suggestive lead-in: Find out the truth at odgenmarsh.com  This I thought was an enticing invitation to explore the world of the film and my clicking led me to the website for the chemical plant responsible for the outbreak, as well as a blog by a woman who is convinced the company is up to no good.

Adversiting is a lucrative business, and a round of awards exist for ads and ad campaigns.  Movie advertising exits in a different category than most other products, as the trailer is often cut by the studio (I don't think I need to get into the kinds of problems that arise from studio marketing).  But when an extra effort is made to promote a film outside convention, to get potential and admitted viewers to further invest in the film, the movie can transcend its fictional reality, and maintain a front-of-mind presence for that much longer.

*It should be noted the brand Slusho!, which is a creation of JJ Abrams, appears in "Alias" and suggests both the TV show and the film are set in the same universe.