“NOTHING LIKE THIS HAS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE!”: Seven Hilarious Exploitation Taglines

The tagline for the new film "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" is "NOTHING SAYS 'DATE MOVIE'...

“SNUFF” (1976)
“The film that could only be made in South America…where Life is CHEAP!”

This tag seems counterproductive; why bash an entire continent of potential viewers? Let’s say you’re an Argentinean connoisseur of grindhouse cinema — are you going to pick a movie that openly disses your homeland right there on the poster? Of course not. I’m offended, and I’ve never even been to South America. There’s no way life there could be half as cheap as this nasty marketing ploy.

“SHATTER DEAD” (1994)
“GOD HATES YOU.”

Yeah, but does He want me to watch this movie? To be really effective, shouldn’t it read something like “If You Don’t Watch This Movie, God Will Hate You Forever”? That at least would have driven people to rent the flick out of sheer fear. As it stands, it just makes me want to go home and have a good cry in the shower.

“CORRUPTION” (1968)
“Corruption is not a woman’s picture! Therefore: No Woman Will Be Admitted Alone to See This Super-Shock Film!!”

From a pure business perspective, disallowing an entire gender from admittance to your film does not seem like a smart decision. I have to assume the gentleman who invented this little gimmick had a great deal of difficulty convincing women to come to the movies with him and was trying to improve his chances.

“THE UNASHAMED” (1938)
“Actually filmed in a nudist camp!”

This is pure brilliance, a direct appeal to the libido guaranteed to drag horny guys into the theater before they can remember nudist camps do not have stringent standards for membership. By that point, you’ve already got their money and they have to sit through ninety minutes of people jiggling about in their ill-fitting birthday suits while they play volleyball or chop wood. And by “chop wood” I do not mean something sexual. I mean chop wood.

[Posters: "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," Lionsgate, 2009; "House of Wax," Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005; "Excessive Force," New Line Cinema, 1993; "A*P*E," Worldwide Entertainment, 1976; "Snuff," Monarch Releasing Corporation, 1976; "Shatter Dead," Tempe Video, 1994; "Corruption," Columbia Pictures, 1968; "The Unashamed," Cine-Grand Films Inc., 1938]

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