Weird Movie Gimmicks

1. 3-D

In 1922, a now-lost film called The Power of Love (Huey Lewis was not consulted) became the first-ever movie to be shown in "3-D". Actually, it was still very much two-dimensional, but an optical illusion that utilized two cameras filming the same action, and then shown as an overlapping image which special glasses (anaglyph were the first) would filter out a different image for the left and the right eye - producing an effect that tricked the brain into thinking it was seeing a "real" 3-D object in space.

After a few decades of baby steps forward in the progress of this technology finally witnessed 3-D launching into theaters in a big way by the mid-1950's. Remember one of Biff's friends from Back to the Future who always wore those weird red/green glasses? Those were 3-D glasses that were quite common to moviegoers looking for a unique movie experience, and such famous films as Dial M for Murder and Creature from the Black Lagoon were gobbled up by the movie-going public in this format.

One 1960 film, 13 Ghosts (from which we saw the later remake Thir13en Ghosts), used a thinly-disguised form of 3-D called "Illusion-O" to let theatergoers decide whether or not they wanted to see the scary ghosts.

While it was billed as the future of cinema, 3-D movies turned out to be a flash-in-the-pan fad, partially due to the expense and pain of producing such films, and partially due to a waning interest. It wasn't the complete end of 3-D, as the format saw a revival in the early-to-mid 80's, with gimmicky titles such as Jaws 3-D, Friday the 13th part 3 and Amityville 3-D pairing up the increasingly-popular horror genre with objects that would seem to leap out at them in the theater.

Ever since the 80's, 3-D has made half-hearted attempts to re-enter the scene, to varying degrees of success (such as Spy Kids 3-D). More and more, this technique is mostly seen in amusement parks and for "special" event movies, such as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which was released in IMAX with 20 minutes of 3-D effects) and George Lucas' planned 3-D conversions of Star Wars.

2. Percepto

Here's a novel idea: why not electrocute the audience who's paying good cash to see your scare flick? I don't know what lapse in common sense hit director William Castle, but for his film The Tingler, several theaters were enhanced with "Percepto", a fancy way of saying "live electrical current being shot into random audience members so they'll scream more when the scary stuff happens."

Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little bit here. The creators claimed that "Percepto" was actually just vibrator buzzers left over from WWII that used to help de-ice plane wings by vibrating them. (Although the electric wiring/shock claim persists.) At a point in the movie, the lights would cut out and Vincent Price would screech, "The Tingler is loose in THIS theater! Scream! Scream for your lives!", a cue for the buzzers to go haywire.

3. Smell-O-Vision

God bless Hans Laube, who grew up to dedicate his life to inventing and perfecting "Smell-O-Vision", which attempted to sync scents with the action occurring on screen. Markers on the film projector would trigger a device to pierce special perfume canisters, which released a scent that was then blown via fans and pipes right to viewers' seats.

How well did Smell-O-Vision work? Considering that it was used for one and only one film in history, I'd say "not great". 1960's Scent of Mystery tried to tell a mystery using scents as an important plot device, such as the smell of grapes or pipe tobacco. While heavily anticipated, the theater patrons were not thrilled with the end result, during which hissing pipes, uneven scent strengths and odd camerawork (such as holding a loaf of bread for a reeeeeeeeeally long time on screen just so the scent would catch up to everyone) made this a resounding failure. Mike Todd Jr., the director, took a huge financial bath on it.

Even so, Smell-O-Vision kept popping up as both a joke and a genuine effort to revive the technique. Cult director John Waters used scratch-and-sniff "Odorama" cards for his 1982 Polyanna, Disney World uses scents in several theatrical attractions, and MTV even aired Scent of Mystery with scratch-and-sniff cards to pay homage to this weird endeavor. Germany is using a type of Smell-O-Vision today called Cinescent to help market commercials before the show, and chances are you've experienced marketing scents if you've ever shopped in the mall or certain stores that release subtle smells into the air to entice you into staying and buying.

4. SignScope

Deaf people are at a disadvantage when it comes to movie viewing. Sure, they have it a lot better nowadays, with ample closed-captioning, but there's still a lot of nuance of speech that is lost with the often-rapid subtitling of movies.

Enter 1975's Deafula, the first - and to date, only - movie filmed completely in sign language. We're not talking about a small box in the corner where an interpreter signs the dialogue, but an entire movie where everyone on screen signs instead of talks. It was called "SignScope", and it was completely wasted on a terrible movie that was more laughable than watchable.

5. Sensurround

In the 70's, disaster flicks were huge business, and Universal Studios was eager-beaver to take it to the next level. This next level was called "Sensurround", and it was used for a handful of movies including 1974's Earthquake and 1976's Midway.

You know how you get a funny feeling if you hold a subwoofer up to your belly and crank the tunes? This was the basic idea behind Sensurround. They equipped theaters with giant speakers that would rumble out the bass at certain points in the movie, so that moviegoers would actually feel their insides quivering due to the sonic attack.

The funny thing was, Sensurround was somewhat of a hit, and helped to make these films legitimate event tickets. Unfortunately, there were a few hitches with the system: it caused several patrons to become physically sick, it damaged the actual theater it was in (cracks were quickly seen on the walls and ceilings, and one theater saw a huge chunk of roof come down and flatten 10 empty seats), and people sitting in the next theater over couldn't hear their own movie. This, coupled with the cost of the equipment, saw the early end of Sensurround.

I can only imagine if these were still in operation in today's extreme sports culture - who wouldn't want to go to a movie where you could potentially get a nose bleed or hit by a ceiling tile for just showing up?

6. William Castle

I should've just put William in his own category to begin with, due to the sheer amount of weird gimmicks he staged to garner more publicity for his films. He was a showman on par with any great circus sideshow announcer.

On top of Percepto and Illusion-O, he dreamed up "Fright Break" (a money-back guarantee to anyone too chicken to sit through all of Homicidal), seat belts for I Saw What You Did, "Punishment Poll" (audience members would vote on whether to kill or spare the villain in Mr. Sardonicus), and $1,000 "Fright Insurance" policy for Macabre.

His final vision remained unrealized: he wanted to install a windshield wiper-like device on theater floors to simulate cockroach movement for 1975's Bug. Unfortunately, he died before the movie was released.