Horror movie distributors of late are beginning to make a habit of gatecrashing sports games with a cheeky bit of off-putting guerilla marketing, and Universal’s upcoming creepy doll flick M3GAN took the same tactic at the Los Angeles Chargers game last night.
The film’s Twitter account (which is naturally being ‘penned’ by the titular doll herself) shared a few of the highlights from the big night out she and her posse of fellow M3GANs had at last night’s game. The dolls made their arrival at the game known, descending down escalators into the stadium in a way too orderly fashion:
We’re unsure whether or not that last M3GAN was supposed to glance down the barrel of the camera there, but kudos if it was intentional considering the whole ‘rogue AI’ shtick the film is going for.
Regardless, the merry band of M3GANs spent their time at the game finding a few people to protect, they crashed the field for a halftime dance number, and otherwise just spent the rest of the game blending into the crowd:
This whole guerilla marketing stunt is somewhat reminiscent of the move which Paramount pulled when promoting Smile ahead of its theatrical release, with a number of freaky-looking folks staring down the barrels of stadium cameras with its iconic grin on their faces without any sort of context.
While this approach was slightly less on the subtle side and maybe a little bit more fun than eerie, it definitely caught some attention. The good news is, it won’t be long until we see M3GAN on the big screen, the first big horror flick of the year hits theaters on Jan. 6, 2023.