A look into Captivity's guerilla marketing campaign.

Although very few people have actually seen Captivity so far, there has been a buzz surrounding the movie for over two months. After Dark Films and Lionsgate Films have been hard at work doing everything possible to promote the movie except for actually showing it to critics, fans or just about anyone else.

ReelzChannel.com has had its own personal relationship with the film as we were invited to the set of re-shoots in Glendale, California back in early March for an exclusive set visit. We walked through the brutal sets of torture, including a massive cage with assorted weaponry and burnt baby dolls, we watched director Roland Joffee conduct scenes with both Cuthbert and her stand in and we even spent a half hour in Elisha Cuthbert’s dressing room. Seriously.. we did!

After visiting the set we were told that Captivity was set for release in May. For a few months, we heard very little about the release. Then, all of the sudden, posters and billboards showed up in mid-March.

Driving down Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A. I did a double take as I witnessed this billboard:

“Wow, I thought? How did they get away with that???”

As it turns out, they didn’t. Controversy quickly built, with local news and web sites discussing the posters, which had reportedly appalled locale residents and passersby.

LGF (Lionsgate Films) was quick to spread the word that they had nothing to do with these posters and that the PR campaign around Captivity was beinghandled entirely by ADF (After Dark Films). Lionsgate spokesman Peter Wilkes told eonline that ADF had "autonomy over their marketing materials" and that Lionsgate "neither saw nor approved this billboard before it was posted."

Lionsgate requested that ADF take the posters down, which they did. After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon told the Hollywood Reporter that the wrong designs were sent to the printer.

Now, one perspective on this is that ADF simply tried to go too far in selling the brutal nature of their new horror movie. It was all an accident and they corrected it. Another is that they had every intent of putting that design up, always knew the posters would have to be taken down, and what they really wanted was to stir things up a bit and score some free PR. I tend to go with the latter, but Solomon and crew maintain the fiasco was a mistake.

The continuing campaign around the movie tends to support my free PR angle, but we'll get into that in a moment.

The release date of Captivity has now changed three times, finally landing on this Friday, which also happens to be Friday the 13th, always a good omen for a horror release I suppose.

Usually release dates are changed before marketing materials go out, but in Captivity's case, promotional materials promoting all three release dates had been in full swing, at least in L.A. Here's a look at the three posters below, which are virtually identical save the color saturation on the June 22nd poster and the change of the title to the top of the July 13th poster in order to properly promote the "Friday the 13th" hook.

Okay, now onto this unique PR campaign. There's a popular marketing book series by Jay Conrad Levinson called "Guerilla Marketing" that I read a while back. Levinson encourages his readers to think of creative (and often inexpensive) "out-of-the-box" strategies in order to market yourself or your business (or in this case, your movie). I've got a hunch that ADF's Solomon (or members of his staff) may have taken a few pointers from these books.

Repulsive posters and shifting release dates were just the start. Most recently, with release nearing, ADF has pulled out all the stops. In lieu of a normal press junket (where critics would screen the movie and then provide cast for interviews), ADF and LGF held a small press day in which critics were shown just under 30 minutes of clips to the film and then given access to interviews with stars Elisha Cuthbert and Daniel Gillies.

Better than that, a press release went out at the end of June announcing the film's sole screening and a massive party featuring excessive debauchery and, of coure, the Suicide Girls.

First, the screening, which is being held in New York for "women's groups."

Meaghan Carey, deputy director of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, refused to take the bait, telling The New York Times ''We would not be receptive... We're not going to go protest so they can get press.''

The party went on as planned, with Solomon telling the New York Times "The women's groups definitely will love it. I call it my personal little tribute to them.''

It apparently delivered on Solomon's initial promise, including three of the most "outlandish" girls from the alternative porn/entertainment site suicidegirls.com (which three fans got to take as dates), live torture rooms featuring some of the set pieces from the movie and assorted scenes depicting varying levels of S & M. ReelzChannel was present at the party and you can check out video footage from the event right here.  

We've also got a few still images from the little soiree below:

After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon enjoys the company of two eager Suicide Girls (left) and debauchy continues later in the night in cages from the set of Captivity (right)

The cynical viewpoint is that Captivity probably isn't any good, as evidenced by the current 13% score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, many speculate that those reviews are based on screenings of the film prior to Solomon's reshoots, which reportedly added more gory torture including a "milkshake" scene that has something to do with body parts and a blender.

When After Dark originally acquired it, Captivity was said to be more psychological in nature , but the recent popularly of so-called "torture-porn" titles such as Hostel and Saw led producers to arrive at the decision that it needed a little tweeking.

So, at the end of the day, whether all of these "out-of-the-box" marketing techniques will put more people in the seats when Captivity opens this Friday in just over 1,000 screens remains to be seen. Either way, Solomon has at least succeeded in stirring an impressive amount of attention for a movie people might never have heard about otherwise.

Has any of this made you want to see Captivity? We'd love to hear your user feedback. You can contribute your thoughts under our "user comments" section on our Captivity page. This is where you will also find our more stills from the party as well as extensive video content related to captivity including our exclusive set visit, interview with star Elisha Cuthbert, footage from the premiere, trailers and more!