HEINUS – LOS ANGELES The movie Breaking Dawn, the latest in the Twilight series, is reportedly causing some viewers to experience seizures. While such an outcome is most likely not the intent of the filmmakers, there are numerous examples in film history of violent physical reaction by audiences. Some prominent cases:
Attack of the 50-Foot Woman: This 1958 release from Allied Artists Pictures Corp. was nationally promoted by the Claymore Shoe Company of Brockton, Nebraska, as a “must see” for shoe store owners and their employees on the mistaken assumption that the title character had 50 feet. Claymore executives concluded that the demand for shoes would skyrocket after the release of the film. When hundreds of thousands of shoe industry members attended the film on opening day, they discovered that the main character was 50 feet tall, but only had one pair of feet. Many in these audiences became violently ill, realizing they had hugely overstocked their stores and the anticipated boom in shoe buying would never occur. More than 400 Claymore stores nationwide were torched by angry shoe store employees and the company went bankrupt.
Scent of Mystery: A 1960 film, “Scent” was the first to use the technique called Smell-O-Vision, which released odors during the film to coincide with the visuals. The technique was not a big hit with audiences, with many people falling ill during scenes set in a Roman vomitorium and during an extended chase through a sewage treatment plant.
The Perfect Storm: A little known episode in the test screening of this 2000 Wolfgang Peterson film involved hydraulically-tilted audience seats that moved in unison with the screen storm. The tests were secretly conducted on audiences in Mongolia. All 1,200 people in the test audience became seasick and plans for further showings using this technique were shelved when “human effluvia” short-circuited the hydraulic platform’s control circuits.
Contagion: A small Fort Detrick, Maryland-based PR firm hired to promote this 2011 Steven Soderbergh film was ready to release radiation-weakened anthrax spores in New York City in an effort to simulate a real plague. The plan was for the spores to be released into building air conditioning systems in Times Square at the time the film opened, making thousands mildly ill and grabbing headlines for the film. The plan was dropped when the anthrax container was stolen from a taxi.
(theater image by Sailko, Times Square image by MikeMcD82 at en.wikipedia)
Related posts:
- Woody Allen admits he is also Alan Greenspan HEINUS – NEW YORK Following the release of the BBC...
- Klingons upset by Battle L.A., claim they’re worse threat to Earth HEINUS – LOS ANGELES The box office success of the...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
