Movie Gimmicks

Other Film Gimmicks

My experience with movie gimmicks is restricted to a few rather less-than-stellar examples: when I was a kid, I was somehow able to gain admission to the immortal classic of our time, 1978's Slithis, AKA Spawn Of The Slithis, and was awarded a "Slithis Survival Kit" in the lobby. The kit consisted of a barf bag and a 5 X 7 xeroxed portrait of the unconvincing title beastie, which I was instructed to place under my pillow and PRAY TO (!) for protection.

During my high school years, several attempts were made to bring back the miracle of 3D. Does anyone out there remember Charlie Band's Parasite? How about Italian pickups Comin' At Ya, Treasure Of The Four Crowns (where are you today, Tony Anthony?)? Big studio got into the act, with predictably lame results, with Jaws 3D and Friday The 13th Part 3. Band tried it again with Metalstorm: The Destruction Of Jared Syn.

The Hypnotic Eye

And someone please tell me I'm not the only sucker who shelled out full admission price for The Man Who Wasn't There starring Steve Guttenberg and Lisa Langois. Y'know, my eyesight is getting worse, and I singularly blame this spate of miserable films with their cheap glasses for my irreversible ocular woes.

Years later, after I'd survived university and managed to thwart off any Slithis attacks, I caught a screening of 1960 sleazy laff-riot The Hypnotic Eye during one of Toronto's short-lived "B Movie Festivals". During the climax of the film, screen baddie/mad hypnotist "The Great Desmond" (Jacques Bergerac) cast his eerie spell over the Bloor Cinema crowd, and soon, we were all blowing up balloons, raising our arms, our legs, twirling our hands...dear me, I hope no one has Polaroids from the rest of the evening.

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Of course, there was 1985's board game-based Clue also, in which a single film to theatres with one of three different endings. But that's not really so special a trick in this day and age--with the way the MPAA and local communities currently butcher films, one only has to travel across the continent to see three different versions of a movie.

- Robert L

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