Confession time: I actually liked this film. Okay, the “romance” moments were really bad but the rest of the film was good. The destruction scenes were very well done and really showcased the horror that’s going on. There’s very little “implied” deaths here, they’re shown, and shown in detail. For example; during a scene where an earthquake induced tsunami where the wave washes through a building, rather than just show it from the outside, or show people getting knocked down, the wave actually knocks someone off a balcony and they land (painfully) on a rail below. The plot itself was really tight as well, it held together beautifully and I’m genuinely invested in the characters and want to see what happens next.

Which makes it even sadder that it’s not doing well at the box office. It’s just about managed to claw back its budget in the US and considering it was only out in a lot of UK cinemas for a week it doesn’t look like it’s going to do too well here. So why is this? It’s got a semi-established name in Chloe Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber is usually pretty solid, and you’d think people would be interested in what Maika Monroe does after It Follows.

I think the big problem is the marketing, in that there really wasn’t any. I haven’t seen any posters for it anywhere, nor any trailers, which considering how often I go to the cinema (thank you Cineworld card) isn’t a good sign. I’ve seen the trailers for Spotlight, Concussion and Dirty Grandpa so often that I can probably quote them word for word.

So how would I have marketed it? Well, I would have made sure trailers were actually shown at cinema for one thing, if it wasn’t for checking the listings at cineworld website I wouldn’t have had any idea this was even on. Also, I would have done a 5 part video game. I’m not talking an extremely complex XBone or PS4 game or something, just a simple online game made of 4 parts, all based on old video games. One could be like a space invaders clone, one could be one where you have to go around shutting off all the electricity towards the building. You stagger the releases and on the final one you reveal that you are actually aliens invading humanity and causing their doom.

I admit that’s not the most definite way, there’s no way it will guarantee success but at least you’ll be trying. Their entire marketing section on wikipedia is “An international trailer was released on Sony Pictures official youtube account on September 1, 2015”. I just went on the website and it’s pretty standard; cast and crew, videos, gallery etc. But there’s one section labelled “defining the waves”. I saw that and thought “ah, this could be good, maybe it provides a lot of background detail or is some kind of viral marketing campaign. Maybe I was wrong. Nope, it’s literally just a sentence describing each wave of attack. As I used to say whenever I was playing someone on Fifa and they messed up; Wasted opportunity there.

But yeah, if you get a chance, go and see this. It may not deserve you buying it, it may not deserve your adoration, but at the very least it deserves your attention.

That’s it for today, don’t forget to like, comment or subscribe (button available in the left menu). Enjoy