Four bottles of beer—and then there were three. This spoof of slasher horror movies leaves a broken-bottle casualty, but manages to humorously promote Miller Lite’s sponsorship of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin. The campy, black-and-white :30 taps into the movie-watcher observation that the characters/victims in horror flicks are unbelievably stupid.
We open on the lead-in trailer countdown to the beginning of a theatrical feature. The logo on the film leader, "Indie Theatre," is echoed by the accompanying welcoming voiceover, "Miller Lite presents Indie Theatre." The film starts with four bottles of Miller Lite "walking" in the countryside. One bottle suggests, in a male teen voice: "Hey, let’s go to the cabin where those people were brutally murdered last summer."
Mindlessly, the teenaged bottles proceed toward the cabin. One—in a Valley girl voice—exclaims delightedly, "Oh, look, a basement!"
The scene shifts to a dark cellar. A scream, the sight of a flickering light bulb and the sound of shattered glass can only mean that something horrible has happened. A shattered bottle lies on the basement floor, beer flowing from "her" glass anatomy.
"The monster got Lola," shouts one of the surviving bottles.
"Oh no, he’s up there," shudders another.
An ominous looking 16-ounce "monster" bottle of Miller Lite lurks in the shadows at the top of the basement stairs. "Push the monster over the ledge, Phil," one teen bottle exhorts his buddy.
Next, we see the monster bottle tumbling down the stairs. "You killed the monster!" exclaims a teen girl’s voice, as two bottles share a victory clink. Supered over a scene of the triumphant teen bottles is, "The End?"
Not quite the end as we next see white letters supered against a black background: "Indie Filmmakers/ It’s Your Time"—a reference to the longstanding "It’s Miller Time" slogan. A closing tag under the Miller Lite logo reads, "Beer Sponsor of the SXSW Film Festival."
"Horror Film" was one of four Miller Lite :30 spoofs which played prior to screenings at the SXSW Fest. The spots also aired on local TV. Dallas-based ad agency Square One conceptualized the campaign, serving as production company as well, due to the project’s limited budget. Kent Johnson and Brad Walk were art director and writer, respectively. Johnson also directed, and shot the spots with a mini DV cam. Square One’s Ernie Capobianco was the executive producer, with Mary Alice Butler serving as producer.
Keith James of charlieuniformtango (CUT), Dallas, was both offline and online editor, as well as sound designer. CUT’s Russell Smith was the audio mixer.
