Thursday, August 9, 2007

Halloween 2007 - Can it Compete with the Classic?

Halloween 2007 - The Remake of a Classic Horror Film Directed by Rob ZombieI'm a huge fan of horror movies and Halloween ranks as one of my all time favorites. I’m referring to the original Halloween…and not the next 5 or 6 that came out after… OK, Halloween 2 was decent, but like most films, there’s nothing like the original.

So I was shocked to see the commercial for a remake of the original, this one directed by Rob Zombie. At first, I was disappointed that someone would mess with the classic film by John Carpenter, but I must admit that the trailer had me glued to the television. I immediately went to my computer and Googled Halloween 2007 and found several links to the trailer, other movies sites, etc. but not the official website. Interesting. After some digging, I found the official Halloween 2007 site and just like the commercial did, the site had me glued to my dual displays!



Flash and Web Video Marketing
Definitely check out the official website to see the trailer and TV spots. There’s some nice flash work on the site… Now, the search marketer in me cringes when I see all flash and no text content (Check out the Google cache for the site here), but we all know this site will get a million links in no time. :) You can navigate around the site via a large kitchen knife, like the one good old Michael Myers uses to kill his victims! Pretty cool…and of course you hear the classic Halloween music, which makes most people shake with fear.

The Rob Zombie Halloween MySpace Page
Then there’s a link at the bottom of the website to the official Rob Zombie Halloween MySpace page, which holds a lot of interesting content about the movie. You can watch the trailer, learn more about the cast, view screenshots from the film, view the official soundtrack (which will be coming out on August 21st), etc. The Rob Zombie Halloween MySpace page already has over 82,000 friends. Not bad. :)

So Can it Compete?
Well, do remakes ever compete with the original?? It definitely has a fresh feel, which I really like. I need to see and hear more, and the proof is in the pudding, but they are off to a great start marketing the film. Halloween fans will probably want to at least check it out and my guess is that many will pay to see it. That said, Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM) can make or break the movie. If it doesn’t live up to the original, it could bomb…and if it brings a new view of a classic horror legend, it could make boat loads of money. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

GG

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