Howdy. I'm the producer on this film.
Here is the truth on the matter:
We never ASKED anybody to write ANY reviews for this film here.
There was NEVER a PR department told to do this, there was NO organized effort to write reviews, nothing of the sort ever happened. Never.
Why? Because it's dishonest, and it would backfire. Just like this.
As a matter of fact, ironically enough, I had a conversation with the director about JUST this matter only a week ago, I was afraid this would happen.
Know this: you are right, but you are wrong. Are some of these reviews obviously pretty bogus? Yep. Did we, the filmmakers, EVER ask anybody to do such a thing. NOPE. It's well-intentioned friends and family and crew and whoever THINKING they are being helpful. Some of them are perfectly sincere, too, in their praise, but you can see SOME are laying it on mighty thick.
Like you, I can see through that in a second, and I don't want those reviews here.
They are done, though, and it looks like there is nothing I can do about it.
"Must of taken you quite a while to register all those names and write all those reviews. Too bad you got caught."
I don't blame you for ASSUMING that, as that is SOP for films here nowadays, but that did not happen here.
Keep in mind that only SOME of the positive reviews are by "friends of the production", the rest are sincere, and for every positive review that might be a shill, there are two or three that are just people messing with our heads and registering a "1" just for kicks.
I understand you are angry, I can see why, but you have the real story above, you can chose to beleive it or not.
But...don't say the film sucked if you did not see it, just out of spite. That lowers you down to the level of Sony or somebody paying college kids to bombard the site with great reviews of Ishtar II.
If I HAD hired a PR company or person to do this, I would be MIGHTY pissed off that they did such a bad job of it!
You go make a film, chances are YOUR Mom, well-meaning, will write you a nice review, too!
Best of luck, and go see the film. It's in Hilton Head this week, Chicago next, or you can get it thorough Netflix or most major video outlets.
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18 years ago
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curtismattikow
18 years ago
People get angry when they feel they are being deceived, I can't blame anyone!
It's not like there is not some TRUTH to what masdic was saying...some people WERE obvious shills...I mean, you can see their name on the crew list, and then they post a review using their [email protected]! Not particularly clever! No real malice intended by them, but be SURE there was no organized effort, the few that are like that, well, they stick out like sore thumbs, and it was just a few people trying to help.
Belive me...if we were doing an organized effort to pump up the ratings, we'd do a MUCH better job about it, it would be slick as snail snot, and we wouldn't be HAVING this conversation at all...why, you'd be on a plane to Chicago to see the next screening, because our PR efforts would have been sooooo damn good!
Alas, such is not the case! We CERTAINLY have no budget to do anything with PR, if someone wants to write out a check so we can bomb IMDB with bogus ratings, just drop me a private message, I'm all ears!
I don't know who it is who keeps dropping the "1" ratings on us, I do wish they would stop. It does not mean much, but it's kind of hurtful, kind of a kick in the ass, every time we see one, because we put so much time and effort(ten years) into this film, and you KNOW those ratings are just someone being pointlessly spiteful for no real reason. I don't think ANYONE who actually saw the film would ever give it a "1". Not one single soul (and thousands have seen it) has said they actively disliked it like that. So I wish whoever did that would stop.
I will admit ONE known shilling, officially sanctioned:
I myself gave the film a ten! Hey, I only got one vote, might as well use it! Naturally, this was a totally unbiased opinion, I was being completely objective!
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madsic
18 years ago
curtismattikow, thank you for standing up for yourself. I'm sorry if I negatively affected your movie in any way.
I have an immense amount of respect for you after reading your post. There isn't a lot of producers/directors that would have the balls to write the post you just did. I didn't like "The Fallen" much, but I will go out of my way to check out your future movies.
Best of luck in your future endeavors,
Sincerely,
madsic
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