13th Street – Last Call (The First Interactive Horror Film)

CASE STUDY
13TH STREET Last Call promotes itself as “The First Interactive horrible movie in theaters” released at April 2010. The viewers are able to communicate with virtual characters via mobile call to help them make a decision in order to escape from the horrible scenarios in real time. Viewer send their phone number for a database, system selects a phone number and phones viewer, then a dialogue between viewer and character take place. The answer are converted into commands and system plays corresponding scene. Although all the scenarios are pre-defined via a huge narrative database, the interactive narrative storyboard structure can offers several branches and different ending to make the user interaction flexibly and deeply into the storyboard. The director also built an interactive cinematic immersive environment called Blood Bath to recall and recover audiences’ memories of this horrible interactive film.

It is so exciting the virtual character gives you a call and said, “I got your number, next victim is you!” when you immersed in virtual cinematic scenarios, surrounded with real horrible object-based simulated environment and accompanied other screamed audiences. The strengths of 13TH STREET Last Call is that interactivity is applied and embedded in a really appropriate approach. Horrible movie is one of the suitable film genres for embedding interactivity as itself has strong explorative scenarios, curious character’s destiny, and staggered narrative structure. It is also quite effective to create artist effects for interactive cinematic immersive environment. Interactivity build the strong tie between audiences and film characters due to binding audiences decision and film characters’ destiny together. The audiences feel entirely being involved in the film as multiple viewers in the theatre can talk to the film characters directly and create a dynamic interactive film together. But the weaknesses of this movie is that it is hardly to control the dynamic interactive plot outcomes from multi-users. It may lead to user interactive frustration due to wrong decision, failure guidelines and unexpected results, but also the cinematic ending is hardly to pleased for everyone.

Describe the objective of the promotion.
The main objective was to attract a new audience for the 13TH STREET channel. Therefore we decided to create a completely new brand experience with a modern state-of-the-art take on the horror genre and position 13TH STREET as a cutting-edge and innovative channel for horror & crime.
The target audience: Young film lovers, horror and genre enthusisasts.
The user experienced horror like never before. By blending the characteristic gaming element of individual control with cinematic storytelling, the project bridges the gap between game and film and thus allows for a brand new entertainment experience.
Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation
Everybody knows the feeling of wanting to warn the victim in a horror film about the impending danger, but it’s impossible.
In horror movies evil spreads fear and terror. The viewer can merely sit and watch. This is how horror films had been working for almost a hundred years. It was about time to change that. We thought about enabling the viewer to contact the victim and help him – or her – to escape.
Therefore we developed a special software that allows for such a dialogue via voice recognition.
Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results
The film hit its target audience exactly – film lovers at cinemas and festivals.
Worldwide LAST CALL captured absolute attention aroused enthusiasm and effectively demonstrated the standards of 13TH STREET. This is evident in the media attention it generated:
- Articles in the largest national and international newspapers (e.g. BILD, DN)
- Features on tv and radio (e.g. BBC)
- Hundreds of articles in film magazines, forums and blogs
All this became immense value for PR and proved that 13TH STREET is the channel for thriller horror and crime.
Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service
The film hit its target audience exactly – film lovers at cinemas and festivals.
Worldwide LAST CALL captured absolute attention and kicked off many discussions about the development of the genre. And of course about interactive storytelling in general.

Advertising Agency: Jung von Matt, Berlin
Executive Creative Director: Matthias Stiller
Executive Creative Director: Wolfgang Schneider
Creative Director: Andreas Henke
Creative Director: Christian Kroll
Creative Director: Peter Gocht
Art Director: Daniel Leverenz
Art Director: Marius Bell
Production Company: Film Deluxe GMBH
Director: Milo