3 Marketing Lessons from the Godfather of B-Horror
Before the internet and digital marketing even existed, director William Castle was turning million-dollar profits for his low budget horror films, which was practically unheard of in the 1960s. If he were around today, he would likely be a billionaire with everyone asking him to spill the secrets of his success. But outside of film history and horror movie circles, Castle still remains relatively unknown, except maybe as the guy who produced Rosemary’s Baby.
However, I think there’s still a lot we can learn from one of American history’s greatest showmen. Some of his “ludicrous but innovative marketing techniques,” as John Waters describes it in his essay “Whatever Happened to Showmanship?”, actually anticipated some of the techniques creatives now use to stand out from the sea of digital content. The following is a case study of some of Castle’s famous promotional gimmicks that may provide inspiration to aspiring content creators and movie buffs alike.
Hands-On, Creative Promotion
For the promotion of his new film Macabre (1958), a rip-off of Diabolique[1], Castle took out a policy with Lloyd’s of London insuring every ticket buyer for $1,000 in case they died of fright. Not only that, he hired fake nurses to stand in the lobby and parked hearses outside of the theaters to further the hype. At the premiere at a Minneapolis theater, Castle himself emerged from a coffin in true showman fashion. The film itself was nothing special, involving several murky plot twists and a live burial, which sounds much more exciting than it actually was (Rotten Tomatoes only gave it a score of 38%). But the insurance policy gimmick worked, Macabre was made with only $90,000 and grossed over $5 million (around $32 million today).
What seemed like such a simple idea was actually part of Castle’s own marketing genius. For one thing, Castle was very hands-on in the promotion side of his films, part of his own methods he called “barnstorming”: “The guy that gets out and barnstorms with his picture, if he has anything at all, is the guy that’s going to make twice as much money. We tested pictures, and the places where we didn’t do it, no matter what we spent on the picture, we’d just do an average gross. The places I visited and barnstormed and came up with gimmickry did six and seven times the normal gross.”
Castle’s P. T. Barnum-style of showmanship is a lesson in how to stand out amidst your competition. He saw that while other B-horror directors understood (and even expected) to only make a lean profit from their films, he went the extra mile and came up with a creative solution that would get people interested, even if they weren’t at all excited about the film. As Waters aptly remarked, “Nobody talked about the movie, but everyone was eager to see if some jerk would drop dead and collect.”
Clueing Your Audience on the Fun
For his next trick, Castle would install his gimmick inside every single theater where his two subsequent films played. The first was House on Haunted Hill (1959) with Vincent Price, his first real star, as eccentric billionaire Frederick Loren, who invites several guests to stay in a haunted house with him for ten thousand dollars if they survive. While the film is much better than Macabrein terms of plot and overall coherence, the real star is Castle’s use of “Emergo,” in which he had theaters to install a skeleton on a zipline to fly across the audience at a given point in the film (where Price’s character appears as a skeleton). Waters notes “Studio executives were initially skeptical when, at first sneak preview, the equipment failed and the skeleton jumped its wires and send a truly horrified audience running for cover.” However, “after further testing, Emergo was perfected and installed in theaters all over the country.” Audiences went wild, the unexpected yet perfect amount of thrill had theatergoers lining up around the block.
Castle’s next film, The Tingler (1959), also starred Price. The titular monster “the Tingler” was a lobster-like creature that supposedly lived in everyone’s spinal column, and twitched when a person was frightened. The only way of killing it before it consumed you was to scream for your life. Faulty science aside, it made no differences to audiences when, in the middle of the film, the screen would go white and an announcement would play “Attention! The Tingler is loose in the theater. Please scream for your life.” Castle, ever the opportunist, had theaters install “Percepto” or vibrating buzzers underneath a few of the seats, which were turned on at this point in the film. If audiences were reluctant to scream at this point, the random buzzers caused sheer pandemonium.
The important thing to note here, besides the inherent shock value of both of these tactics, was that the reason audiences loved these gimmicks is because they encouraged engagement and participation. While their shock factor may wane over time, they were always entertaining. I mean, who can resist a ziplining skeleton even if the movie doesn’t have you at the edge of your seat? People love to feel included in the fun, versus being sold to.
Recognizing the Talents of Your Best People
Strait-Jacket (1964) was a psychological thriller starring Joan Crawford, who, following the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), appeared in a number of horror films during the latter half of her career. The film was written by Robert Bloch, a horror writer who was the youngest member of the Lovecraft Circle and wrote the novel Psycho that became the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous film of the same title. Castle knew talent when he spotted it. Though Crawford at the time was on her way out, due to the sexism and ageism of Hollywood, he knew that by including her in the promotional aspects of the film he could attract a wide audience. His strategic use of Bloch too, might have stemmed from his rivalry with Alfred Hitchcock, who used some of Castle’s signature marketing techniques to promote Psycho.
The gimmicks ranged from handing out little cardboard axes at premieres to depicting the Columbia torch-bearer with a missing head during the closing credits. But the pièce de resistance was this promotional short, “How to Plan a Movie Murder,” starring Crawford, Bloch, and Castle. These were the days before Instagram stories or other means of marketing through short videos, which makes this short clip all the more fascinating to watch as an example of connecting with your audience:
Another example of Castle’s keen eye for talent was securing the rights to Ira Levin’s novel Rosemary’s Baby when the galleys came out. He was so sure of its potential that he mortgaged his Beverly Hills home (something he did many times to finance his films, probably to the chagrin of his family) and enlisted Paramount to produce the film and sign Roman Polanski to direct. Of course, the rest is history as far as the film being one of the most celebrated horror classics of all time. But the takeaway here is that Castle knew how to take a calculated risk and invest in talent when he spotted it.
Summary
While a large percentage of marketing relies upon strategy and opportunity, a lot of what makes good marketing great is innovation and creativity. You might think that a horror film director from yesteryear wouldn’t have anything to do with staying relevant in today’s world, but a lot of what made Castle so successful in an industry notorious for high stakes and losing money he did astoundingly well.
First, he thought outside of the box in terms of how he could promote his films, and he did so consistently, having a hand in the promotion at every single theater when he was just starting out. Second, he knew how to engage his audience and make it fun. He wasn’t just about to sell them something, he let them in on the experience. And finally, he knew how to spot talent and retain his best people. By bringing in people like Vincent Price, Robert Bloch, Joan Crawford, and Ira Levin he added a layer of credibility to his efforts and knew how to rise above the competition. Castle’s legacy is proof that good promotion doesn’t always exist within the tried and true methods, sometimes a little ingenuity is needed to push your way to the top.
[1]A crime thriller by French director Henri-Georges Clouzot, you can find this one through the Criterion collection.
