Video Marketers Ready to Scare Up Halloween Sales

Halloween has long since ceased being a holiday just for kids, but home video marketers are grabbing on to this year’s date with more aggressive campaigns, and bigger releases, than ever before.

For the first time, two “event” titles, films with box-office earnings of more than $100 million, are being released on video specifically in time for Halloween.

Both “The Mummy,” from Universal Studios Home Video, and “The Blair Witch Project,” from Artisan Home Entertainment, will be available in stores for a little more than $20, priced for direct sale to consumers.

Retailers are also preparing their shelves for a bumper crop of animated features and re-priced, repackaged and re-promoted horror films from the past, from Universal’s collection of vintage black-and-white monster movies from the 1930s to New Line Home Video’s boxed set of “Nightmare on Elm Street” Freddie flicks.

Universal in particular has driven the video attack on this year’s holiday. “Our goal is to own Halloween,” said Universal Studios Home Video president Craig Kornblau.

Jeff Yapp, president of Hollywood Entertainment Corp., the nation’s second-largest video specialty retail chain, said he knew as early as April that this year’s Halloween holiday was going to be big. That’s when Universal gathered key retailers from around the country at the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Fla., and unveiled its massive campaign for “The Mummy,” a week before the film even opened theatrically.

“We took a risk,” Kornblau said. “We locked in our tie-in partners and told retailers it would be released for sell-through before anyone had even seen it. I remember being real nervous when the film came up” at a screening.

Fortunately for Universal, “The Mummy” ended up grossing more than $150 million at the box office, more than enough to warrant a sell-through release--and chill any nervousness Kornblau may have had.

The video is being released Sept. 28 at a suggested list price of $22.98 on VHS and $29.98 on DVD. The DVD includes some extras, such as a behind-the-scenes look at the special effects, deleted scenes, a director’s commentary and a collection of facts about ancient Egypt and Egyptian mythology.

The release will be supported by a major promotional campaign that includes plenty of TV and print advertising, rebates and tie-ins with Hershey Foods Corp. and Polaroid Corp.--the latter signing on as co-sponsor of the Mummy’s Gold Sweepstakes, with a grand prize of $100,000.

“More candy is sold at this time of year than at any other time, and, with the exception of Christmas, more pictures are taken as well,” Kornblau said. “These are natural partnerships.”

In addition to “The Mummy,” Universal is capitalizing on Halloween by releasing a new direct-to-video animated feature, “Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein,” aimed at kids.

And for older viewers, Universal is re-releasing eight classic monster movies on video as well as DVD, all in new packaging with the original theatrical art. The Classic Monsters collection, which includes “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “The Wolf Man,” “Creature From the Black Lagoon” and the original 1931 “The Mummy,” is priced at $14.98 each.

“We have a corporatewide initiative to maximize our horror catalog,” Kornblau said. “Universal wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for horror.”

In the early days of the Great Depression, movie studios were hit hard, and Universal began filming and releasing a series of monster films “that brought us back from the brink,” Kornblau said. “These films provided people with major escapism from their woes.”

“Dracula” is getting special treatment. Composer Philip Glass has written and performed, with the Kronos Quartet, a new musical score for the 1931 film, which premiered a few weeks ago to rave reviews at the Telluride Film Festival. Glass and his group are now on a promotional tour in support of the release.

The video of “Dracula” includes the new score. The DVD version, priced at $29.98, also includes the original unscored film and the Spanish-language version of the movie, which was filmed at the same time on the same set at night, after the American crew had finished its work.

“We have brought to market something for everybody--’The Mummy’ for a broad audience, ‘Alvin’ for kids, and the classic monster movies for hard-core video collectors and the nostalgia market,” Kornblau said.

The growing commercial appeal of Halloween--according to the American Express Retail Index it has become an annual industry valued at up to $3 billion, with the average American consumer spending $81--is not lost on other home video suppliers.

Artisan Home Entertainment sensed a perfect match with Halloween and its surprise horror hit “The Blair Witch Project.” When the low-budget film passed the $100-million mark in domestic box-office receipts, the independent supplier decided to rush-release the video on Oct. 22, cutting the normal six-month theatrical-to-video window in half.

“We wanted to take advantage of the Halloween selling period and make ‘The Blair Witch Project’ as strong a commodity as costumes or candy,” said Jeff Fink, Artisan’s president of sales and marketing.

“The Blair Witch Project” is also being released at a low price ($22.98) for direct sale to consumers.

For the third consecutive Halloween, Warner Home Video is spending millions of dollars to promote a direct-to-video feature starring Scooby-Doo. This year’s installment, “Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost,” will be released Oct. 5 at a suggested retail price of $19.96.

In addition to heavy TV and print advertising, Warner’s promotional tricks include a $3 rebate offer with the purchase of General Mills’ Count Chocula, Frankenberry and Booberry cereals and sending free trick-or-treat bags to kids in the top 25 markets.

“Traffic in stores around Halloween is second only to Christmas,” said Tom Lesinski, Warner Home Video’s senior vice president of marketing. “Think about how much shopping--for candy, for costumes, for candy--goes on at Halloween. It brings people into stores--and it’s the perfect demographic for us: moms with kids.”

Several other home video suppliers are releasing, or re-promoting, collections of scary movies.

New Line Home Video has just come out with a boxed set of the remastered “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, available on both VHS and DVD. The studio is also reissuing past horror hits “Campfire Tales,” “Embrace of the Vampire,” “The Mangler,” “Jason Goes to Hell” and “Leatherface.”

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has come out with six “Goosebumps” titles, aimed at kids, and is also re-promoting catalog titles “Casper: A Spirited Beginning” and “Casper Meets Wendy,” “The Omen” series and both the original and the remakes of “The Fly” and “The Fly II.”

MGM Home Entertainment is releasing “Child’s Play,” “The Dark Half” and “Monkey Shines” on DVD.

Unapix Home Entertainment, an independent home video supplier based in New York, is launching a “Horror Shop” collection that includes such campy direct-to-video chillers as “Jack Frost,” “The Breeders,” “Ice Cream Man” and “Bleeders.”

“It’s all part of a trend we’ve seen materialize in the past three or four years,” Warner’s Lesinski said. “Halloween has become bigger and bigger, and video suppliers are taking note.”

Thomas K. Arnold is editor in chief and associate publisher of Video Store magazine, a weekly trade publication serving the home video market.