The Dumbest Horror Movie Gimmick

To attract audiences to movie houses, gimmicks were used by film producers in the 1950s and 1960s. One stupid gimmick, “Smell-O-Vision,” facilitated the spraying of different perfumes to signal crucial points in the movie. However, audiences were not amused at all. Movie producer William Castle’s gimmicks entailed putting joy buzzers in seats and suspending plastic skeletons from the ceiling.

Dumb as it was, it could not reach the level of the Psychodrama format described as the dumbest of all time. The 1958 movie Terror in the Haunted House facilitated the debut of the Psychodrama gimmick.

Highlights of the movie boasted that it had a “4th dimension” characterized by scary scenes hidden in the movie. However, these dumb mysterious heart-stopping scenes were just an insult to the audience. It was just a glimpse of what seems like a political cartoon of Larry David chewing a rat.

Furthermore, the star of the Psychodrama movie titled A Date With Death claimed that people’s reaction to Psychorama movies was impressive. However, when the scary scene is revealed, it only shows two guys throwing lame punches at each other. Also, the words “KILL” and “BLOOD” are shown on the screen.

This attempt to control people’s minds was not made by the Psychorama gimmick alone. Horror movies that aimed at hypnotizing people were prevalent. Horrors of the Black Museum, a 1959 movie was supposed to frighten the audience but did not live up to its name.

It was just a normal movie with a long introduction trying to convince the audience that the movie was not bad, yet it was the worst. Even reviews described the movie as a disgrace and embarrassment to the horror genre.