Apples & demons

Pentacle — check. Dagger — check. Full moon in background — check. Bride from Hell having a bad hair day — 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 freaking can of caterpillars.

But why suggest creepiness when you can spell it out, right? Enter our copywriter. Think, 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? 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 curious enough to see what “The Mother of Tears” was all about, so I looked it up at IMDb and learned that it was directed by the great Italian horror-meister Dario Argento, and that it is the last installment 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 there’s more, and it’s this part that really 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 always worth seeing, not because of some silly consideration like plot or scream factor, but because of Ms. Argento’s casual attitude to disrobing. That woman is fearless. She was naked most of the time in “The Last Mistress” and I was ecstatic because that meant her partner was also in a similar state of undress, and 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 later — for the 18th time; he’s… er, it’s that good.

But I digress.

Indeed, a (not-so) funny thing happened to this movie on its way to local theaters. The distributor re-worked the poster by replacing Ms. Argento with said Bride from Hell (perhaps to cater to Filipino theatergoers’ perceived preference for “Ring”- and “Grudge”-type bogeywomen?), removing any mention of its famous director and star (they’re father and daughter, in case you’re wondering), then slapping on a blurb that cheekily proclaimed the movie more terrifying than Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou playing fast and loose with historical facts while dodging a beefy albino — and all the horny males looked at that poster, went, Huh?, and joined the queue for the new “Transformers”. Who could blame them?