In a few weeks The Nun (dir. Corin Hardy) will be released. The film is the next installment in The Conjuring film universe, alongside Annabelle: Creation (dir. David F. Sandberg, 2017), and being a direct prequel to The Conjuring 2 (dir. James Wan, 2016). Before is has even reached audiences, though, it has already faced lots of criticism online.
First off, I have never seen a Conjuring film, despite my love of Patrick Wilson, so I can’t say I was paying much attention to the film or its marketing campaign. But a few weeks ago many Youtube users began complaining about an ad for the film that was being played before videos. It starts with a blank screen and the apple volume icon pops up, looking as if the users volume is mysteriously being turned down. The intent was, most likely, to have viewers turn their actual volumes up when, suddenly, a “screamer” (a frightening image, usually a distorted face, accompanied by a loud screaming noise that have been popular online for years) pops up on screen followed by the title card for The Nun.
The ad received tons of backlash from this with many people complaining about how they were unable to skip the ad and the lack of jumpscare warning. Screamers have faced tons of backlash like this for years, with many people who have anxiety or sensory processing disorders saying it is far more difficult for them to deal with them than other people who may just be startled by it.
The ad faced so much controversy it was even eventually pulled from Youtube, with the company citing their “violent and shocking content" policy.
Personally this ad has done nothing to affect my plans (read: none) to see The Nun, it’s a part of a greater series that I just haven’t personally seen yet. As far as the ad? I think it’s in somewhat poor taste. Screamers have existed for years online, probably most notably in “the scary maze game”, a puzzle style flash game that shocked players with an image from The Exorcist in its 3rd level. Over the years, though, screamers have become less popular because of the reasons I stated above, and that they just lost their uniqueness. I applaud The Nun’s marketing team for trying something different for film trailers, and that garnered them tons of press. Perhaps the hope was that people would see the ad and think If the ads are willing to scare me this way, what will the film be daring enough to do? But for me, it just proves it will be yet another horror film filled with cheap jumpscares.
Sources:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/scary-maze-game
https://www.bustle.com/p/this-the-nun-trailer-was-banned-from-youtube-for-scaring-the-hell-out-of-people-video-10139740