Apples & demons

Pentacle — check. Dagger — check. Full moon — check. Bride from Hell — check. One look at that poster and you know this is definitely not a Woody Allen movie. Are you kidding? That girl looks creepy as a can of caterpillars.

But why suggest creepiness when you can spell it out, right? Enter our copywriter. Think, Mr. Copywriter, think. Think comparatively. Think “more terrifying,” then the title of a recent blockbuster to complete the effect. Think… The Da Vinci Code?

You know what I’m thinking? This is how not to sell a horror movie. If you ask me, nothing was terrifying about The Da Vinci Code except that it raked in tons of money at the box-office and encouraged its producers to make a sequel. The comparison may not gall you as much as it does me, but that’s a slippery slope our copywriter is standing on, my friends, and I see no other way but down. Who knows what it will be next time? “More pulse-pounding action than Lost in Translation?” “More thought-provoking than Freddy Got Fingered?” “Funnier than The X-Files?” “More gut-wrenching than Borat?” Wait — didn’t Borat turn your stomach? Never mind.

Now I am not a big fan of horror movies, but that pathetic attempt at engaging my attention made me just curious enough to see what The Mother of Tears was all about, so I looked it up on IMDb and learned that it was directed by the Italian horror-meister Dario Argento, and that it is the last of a trilogy which started with Suspiria (1977), now a horror classic, but perhaps our copywriter was too young (or clueless) to know that. Ever heard of Google, honey?

Oh, mother: The three faces of the much-obliging Asia Argento — or is it just two?

But here’s more, and it’s this part that sticks in my craw. The poster fails to mention that Asia Argento is in the movie! Unbelievable! Every male worth his hormones knows that any film featuring Asia Argento is a must-see, not for some silly consideration like plot or scream factor, but because of Ms. Argento’s casual attitude to disrobing. The woman is fearless. She was naked most of the time in The Last Mistress (2007) and I was ecstatic because that meant her partner was also in a similar state of undress. I don’t mind telling you that I have this huge crush on Fu’ad Aït Aattou. In fact I plan to watch that movie again later; he’s… er, it’s that good.

But I digress.

Indeed, a (not-so) funny thing happened to The Mother of Tears on its way to local theaters. The distributor re-worked the poster, removed any mention of its famous director and sexy star (they are father and daughter, by the way), and slapped on a blurb that proclaimed the movie “more terrifying” than Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou playing fast and loose with historical facts while dodging a beefy albino (the best thing in The Da Vinci Code, if you ask me) — and all those horny males looked at that poster, went, Huh?, and joined the queue for the new Transformers. Who could blame them?