Where does advertising for an indie film overstep the mark? The Movie Marketing Blog brings up Francis Xavier’s “Johnny Come Lately” indie film as one that has crossed that line.

Francis Xavier promoted his indie flick “Johnny Come Lately” by plastering the streets of Baltimore with fake reward posters seeking a murderer. Unfortunately, it looks like Mr. Xavier didn’t take into account the negative backlash:

Misleading. Exploitative. A senseless and painful ruse. That’s the reaction from those for whom the murder of a child is reality, not fiction.

“When I really learned its purpose, my knee-jerk reaction was something parents of murdered children say ? murder is not entertainment,” says Roberta Roper. “You have to walk in someone’s shoes to appreciate that journey.”

Where do you draw the line when every new movie has to surpass the last to make its mark at all? We’ve each got our own set of ethics and morals, and, in the same way the Blair Witch caused controversy with it’s first advertising campaign where they pretended it was a true documentary, Xavier risked offending people by putting posters up about a fake murder.

I personally think it is disrespectful to people who’ve lost close ones that way, and it’s a blantant lie for the sake of attention. Yes, people die in just about every movie, but we go into the cinema KNOWING what we are viewing is fiction, and knowing no one was harmed in the making.

Not only is it insulting to be tricked into believing the murder was real, but it’s an incredibly unoriginal way of doing it. Blair Witch did it, then that idea was knocked off by multiple other b-rated movies.

I’m in no way criticizing the content of the film itself, as I haven’t seen it. I’m sure Mr. Xavier could come up with much more original ways of advertising his movie, even with a limited indie-movie budget!