Amityville Horror remake backed with fly-ridden online ad push

by Emma Rigby, Revolution UK 15-Apr-05

LONDON - Twentieth Century Fox is promoting the release of its remake of 'The Amityville Horror' from MGM with an online push.

The film company has translated a scene from the remake of the 1979 cult film into an online ad campaign, created by Lean Mean Fighting Machine, and running on MTV, The Sun, Channel 4, NME and FHM websites from April 15. Media is by Starcom Digital.

In the scene from the film, hundreds of flies appear from the woodwork in the house -- where an entire family has been slaughtered -- and crawl over the windows before besieging a priest.

The online ad recreates this, starting with a single fly, apparently crawling about on the computer screen. The ad then develops into a flurry of buzzing and crawling flies. As they multiply, the ad becomes completely obscured before the famous haunted windows appear.

Sam Ball, creative partner at Lean Mean Fighting Machine, said: "It was important that the flies looked and behaved realistically to create an impression of a plague of disgusting flies infesting your computer. By giving each fly its own simple artificial intelligence the illusion was made possible despite the tight file size restrictions."

'The Amityville Horror' opens this weekend and is a remake of the famous 1979 film. It is based on a allegedly true story about a house in Amityville, Long Island, where, in 1973, a family was slaughtered by their son and brother, Ronald Defeo. A year later, the Lutz family moved in to the house, and the film tells the story of what happened to them.

Clare MacIntosh, marketing manager at Twentieth Century Fox, said: "From a creative point of view, the horror genre enables us to have some real fun creatively, exploring elements from the movie that are haunting or creepy, and will really be eye-catching for the viewer."

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