Snakes on a Plane (official site and Wikipedia page), you’ve read about it I’m sure – it’s all over the Internet, not to mention in the blogs. A phenomenon before anyone’s even seen the movie, ridiculous of course, as most hyped things are.

Unless they deliver of course, then they kick ass.

Remember The Blair Witch Project from 1999? The low budget horror movie filmed with a handycam, about snot-covered scared people running in the forest? No, I didn’t like it.

Anyway, in 1999 weird signs, banners and buttons started to appear online. The Blair Witch Project was promoted with an, at the time, ingenious campaign that made the viewer actually wonder what The Blair Witch Project really was. All in all, a clever stunt with occult symbols in all the right places.

Snakes on a Plane is The Blair Witch Project of 2006. PR people put the spin out there, and bloggers made it buzz. In a way it’s a better campaign than that of The Blair Witch Project since it didn’t involve buying a lot of ads, and as we all know personal hyping is worth a lot more than ads ever can be.

The Blair Witch Project campaign can’t be made again. Viral marketing might be all the buzz (of last year at least) but it doesn’t feel new anymore – and then it won’t hit as hard. I think the same goes for the achieved cult status of Snakes on a Plane. It would be really hard to rally the blogosphere like that again.

Did you pimp Snakes on a Plane and have you seen it? Now, can you honestly say that you did the right thing – or did you just fall for the hype? Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone out there. Even Jeffrey Roland did it, and he’s a cowboy poet dammit!

Further reading: Snakes on a Plane on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB and the nice review write-up over at Defamer.