SCARE CAMPAIGN (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

scare campaign (2016) movie

Genre               |   Horror

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |  80 minutes

Released         |   25 October 2016

cast

Ian Meadows as Marcus
Meegan Warner as Emma
Olivia DeJonge as Abby
Cassandra Magrath as Suze

director

​Colin & Cameron Cairnes

writer

Colin & Cameron Cairnes

cinematographer

​John Brawley

music

​Glenn Richards

film editor

Adam White

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box office result

Worldwide             No data ​

Australia                 No data

North America        No data   

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fantastique facts

​​The name of film student movie producer in the horror movie Cut (2000) was Hester Ryan (Sarah Kants). The production manager on Cut (2000) was Julie Ryan, who went on to become a film producer, and has produced such horror movies as Scare Campaign (2016) and 100 Bloody Acres (2012).

Colin Cairnes on the film's origins...
"It was probably a mixture of things – after 100 Bloody Acres we wanted to do another project with our producer, Julie Ryan, and she was keen to do another horror film, although this time we thought we’d go more straight horror instead of horror/comedy. I think the idea came from us just trolling the internet, looking for ideas and inspiration, and finding these YouTube clips about reality TV programs (prank shows) where people are put into these scary situations, and we thought, “What if the victim were to turn and got their revenge on the TV crew?” So the idea spun from that, and we started looking around for some locations to shoot. Victoria, Australia, has a number of old abandoned lunatic asylums with wonderful architecture and all sorts of nooks and crannies to shoot in. These locations come reasonably cheap, so it’s great for low-budget horror moviemaking, and we’re talking to you from one of those asylums right now."

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SCARE CAMPAIGN (2016) IMAGES

SCARE CAMPAIGN (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Popular prank TV show, Scare Campaign, has been entertaining audiences for the last 5 years with its mix of old school scares and hidden camera fun. But as we enter a new age of online TV the producers find themselves up against a new hard edged web series which makes their show look decidedly quaint. It's time to up the ante, but will the team go too far this time, and are they about to prank the wrong guy?

SCARE CAMPAIGN (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 26 March 2016
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ latest film - SCARE CAMPAIGN - executes its horror tropes to an above-average standard, but an utterly non-sensical plot may leave viewers prone to bouts of frustration and bewilderment. Having gained notoriety with their 100 BLOODY ACRES movie in 2012, SCARE CAMPAIGN falls short of the potential the Cairnes brothers demonstrated with their previous film. It's not hard to see what the Writer/Director team were attempting to create; a meta-film that examines the impact of social media on the established (but rapidly diminishing reach) traditional forms of entertainment such as television. It’s a really solid central premise, but the film’s plot developments in its Third Act ask too much of the viewer and the suspension-of-disbelief is all but surrendered by a twist that just seems silly; even for a horror film.

SCARE CAMPAIGN is also the name of the television show that is the story’s focus and opens with the cast & crew executing their latest set-up on an unsuspecting participant. Meegan Warner plays Emma, the show’s leading actress, who’s disgruntled with the show’s Producer (and sometime boyfriend) Marcus (Ian Meadows). As the production team finish up production on the latest episode, Emma tells Marcus that she’s through with Scare Campaign. What is difficult to reconcile is the existence of Emma as the show’s star. The story establishes that the show has been running for five years and she’s an important part in its success. After five years, however, her star status would surely preclude Emma from being able to play her part in the show without alerting the “victims” to who she is and what they’re involved in. This is a critical flaw in the film’s story. Many casual viewers may not even give it a thought, but it’s details like this that make the difference to a film like SCARE CAMPAIGN, where the target audience are as well-versed in dissecting the plot in much the same way the killers in the film’s they watch dismember their victims.

The supporting cast of SCARE CAMPAIGN do an admirable job and the public awareness of two of them may, in fact, help the film’s prospects both locally in Australia as well as in international markets. Young actress Olivia DeJonge has seen her international prospects sky-rocket off the back of her performance in M.Night Shyamalan’s return-to-form film THE VISIT. Given this development, DeJonge’s association with SCARE CAMPAIGN won’t do the film’s awareness any harm. Jason Geary, who is so familiar to Australian audiences as the i-SELECT guy, is a bit of stunt casting on the part of the Cairnes brothers that sees his prolific presence on local TV screens put to good use. There is one drawback for locals...He’s so present as the face of that company in TV, print and online advertising that it’s hard to accept him as anyone other than that character.

In spite of the low-cost location settings, the everyday wardrobe and so-so looking props, SCARE CAMPAIGN revels in its gore and has a couple of extremely effective set pieces. Shot principally at the disused Beechworth Psychiatric Hospital, in regional Victoria, the Cairnes brothers make good use of the corridors and rooms to build tension through the film’s Second Act. Josh Quong Tart’s Rohan is central to this action as SCARE CAMPAIGN’s latest unwitting guest. Emma quickly realises that something is very wrong with Rohan and tries to convince Marcus to shut down filming. Faced with an earlier ultimatum from network boss Vicki (Sigrid Thornton) to ramp-up the thrill factor or be cancelled, Marcus opts to the action roll well beyond the norms of responsibility and decency. Emma is forced to take matters into her own hands and events quickly spiral out of control as the SCARE CAMPAIGN team find out who’s really in charge. Horror fans will feel like they've seen all of this before and they’d be correct. Despite its meta aspirations, SCARE CAMPAIGN only partly succeeds in its attempt to elevate the genre’s tropes beyond the slasher fare that has seen Horror movies so maligned since Michael Myers slashed his way onto cinema screens in the late 1970s.

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