How to Sell an Awful Film in 12 Easy Steps

Plan 9 From Outer Space nearly always makes the "worst movies of all time" lists.

Here are my tricks of the trade:

1. Revise History
Since DVD’s are an incredibly lucrative product, the studios will buy up cheaply-priced, understandably forgotten films from the 80’s and 90’s and dump them back on the market under assumed names. These box office bombs are “refreshed” with a new title, a new tagline, and most important, new box designs. It doesn’t matter what the movie is really about — starving orphans in Bombay, the vanishing rainforest — the default low-budget indie film box art remains the same: boobs and a gun.

You don’t want to turn off your targeted Saturday afternoon impulse buyer at Blockbuster with some depressing picture of a kid with no arms. But as always, the goal is to convince people that this film is new. For example, a film made nine years ago starring Taye Diggs and Hill Harper was given a new lease on life when the filmmakers shopped it around under a new title (and a new production year!) with the now 30-something actors looking surprisingly youthful in the role of high school students.

2. Inflate Your Advertising Budget
Instead of taking its rightful place in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart, a bad film will sometimes get a mercifully “limited” big screen release in a film festival or a weekend film event. Even though the box office receipts from these screenings aren’t much, the festival advertising budgets are usually pretty decent. Big advertising budgets are music to the ears of DVD retailers, and so it's often implied — though not directly stated — that the amount of money spent on promoting the entire “Vampire Crapfest 2005” was actually focused on promoting one single cinematic gem, Vampire Booty Call to a waiting world.

3. Slice and Dice Legitimate Reviews
This is the oldest trick in the book. If the film ran at a decent film festival, it may have unfortunately caught the eye of Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. This is never good, since somewhere on the Internet there lurks a review. But even the worst review has one or two benign phrases that can be turned into an endorsement. For example, here’s one of my better reviews from a prominent industry trade magazine: “As further proof there is no God, we direct your attention to Vampire Booty Call, a new film unsurpassed in degeneracy, filth and mindless mayhem.” Of course, the next day the film’s website shamelessly screamed in 30-point font: “Variety Calls Vampire Booty Call Unsurpassed!” Since most people are too lazy to dig through all the trade archives to find the original article, I’m never publicly outed.

4. Solicit Reviews from Legitimate (Sounding) Websites
Luckily, a lot of important-sounding movie websites (something like, say, "TheCriticsChoice.com" or "TheDVDCritic.com") belong to lonely guys living in rural hamlets who are desperate for something to write about and easily bribed into giving a film four stars in exchange for some free screeners and a vaguely worded invitation to the “world premiere.” Of the ten fake movie critic sites that I use, six are in West Virginia, two are in Virginia, one is in Kentucky and one is in North Carolina. Go figure. Most of these guys (and they're always GUYS) can't get Fed Ex deliveries, since they're all on some rural route or use PO Boxes.

Once they post the glowing tribute on their websites — the links usually arrive in my inbox within ten minutes — I can proudly quote their raves on our movie posters, websites, and marketing materials.

6. Recruit an Unpaid MySpace Army to Create Buzz
MySpace is a key stop on the bad movie marketing tour. After creating a cool looking homepage for the film, recruiting a few celebrity “friends” and posting a deceptive, download-able trailer, it’s time to hold a contest! Studio interns are chained to their computers for 12 hours a day, looking for women who seem … friendly, and inviting them to enter the official Miss Vampire Booty Call contest, the winner being awarded a “role” in the DVD special features. After the film has made about 10,000 MySpace friends, I send out announcements about the star studded “premiere after-party” (date and time to follow, of course) to all our new pals, asking them (did we mention the after-party?) to post a promotional banner on their own webpages. Yes, this actually works.

7. Create a Distracting Official website
Though the MySpace site is the central command post, it will be accompanied by a “real” website, which, like the trailer, has little to do with the actual film. Instead we dazzle viewers with flash animation, sexy videoblogs, irrelevant links, more trailers, and — of course — more contests, all enhanced with shots of hot looking women. The key words here are “interactive” and “timewaster”; the goal is to have the URL passed around the Internet and hopefully linked by major bloggers. This official website is also linked to fake fan sites (blogs I write myself) and the websites of our good friends back at TheDVDCritic.com in the unnamed rural hamlet.

8. Bombard Drive-Time Radio With Giveaways
Since our target audience spends most of their day getting stoned in their cars, radio station giveaways are a perfect way to create awareness of our movies without spending a lot of money. (The phrase “a film made for radio” is an apt description of my current catalog.) Persuading (i.e. paying) a popular station to sponsor a film implies an endorsement, which is much more important than a good print or television review.

9. Get D-list Celebrity Endorsements
Forget traditional reviewers. It’s what Tommy Lee thinks about the film that’s important! And since our target audience rarely looks at a newspaper, an endorsement from a "D" celebrity or a semi-known professional athlete actually has some weight. I usually rely on the filmmakers — who’ve been name-dropping non-stop since they unloaded the film on me — to dredge up some endorsements, and eventually they’ll supply some useable quote from a former SlipKnot bass player.

10. Pander to Ethnic or Political Organizations
If the film has even the slightest political message or one of the cast members can claim an Italian grandmother, we “reach out” to ethnic or semi-relevant political organizations and rally them to attend (or better yet, pay for) the premiere or DVD launch party. Interviews with appropriate cast members are offered to the organization’s newsletters and websites, and endorsements are sought from club officials or high ranking members. If we’re lucky, a bunch of email blasts will go out to the membership, requesting that people support the cause.

11. Wait 'til a Cast Member Strikes It Big
Occasionally a cast member from one of our films will become an overnight sensation, which means it's time for another box art makeover! Even if the film is eight years old and the actor had a 30 second walk-on part, he now becomes the “star” of the film, with his giant face plastered on the cover of the DVD. Occasionally we try to get this actor — who’s been trying to forget he was ever involved — to help us promote the re-re-release, but these pleas are usually met with a stony silence from his new, horrified publicist.

12. Throw a Memorable Party
Staging an event to promote a bad film is a recent development, as my promotional budgets are usually in the high three figures. But occasionally an investor can be squeezed for a few additional dollars, encouraged by pictures of the finalists for Miss Vampire Booty Call that I promise will be in attendance. The goal of the party is to have something momentous happen — D-list celebrity catfights, drunken brawls, feuding rapper shootouts — which will be later mentioned by the gossip columns and tabloid press. If done correctly, the party will not only interest the soft news media but will also catch the attention of city services such as the fire department or the local bomb squad.

Susan Self is a publicist who lives in Los Angeles.