During YouTube’s recent Brandcast, an executive from Universal discussed how YouTube played a crucial role in turning Unfriended into a sleeper hit. The found footage flick isn’t the only new horror film benefiting from an online video push; Focus Features recently teamed up with digital studio Cinemand for a video in which YouTube and Vine stars promote the upcoming release of Insidious: Chapter 3.
The video is titled “Tiptoe Through The Tulips,” and it is a cover of the classic song of the same name. The video’s four stars–Meg DeAngelis, Eric Ochoa, Brittany Furlan, and Christian DelGrosso–put a horror movie spin on the track, with DeAngelis starring as a creepy stalker of sorts. Cinemand, which is led by YouTube star Michael Gallagher, created the video to hype the third installment of the Insidious franchise, which will arrive in theaters on June 5th. Gallagher released the video on April 30th on his Totally Sketch YouTube channel, which has more than 1.1 million subscribers and 470 million views to date.
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Film studios often favor campaigns like this one for how effectively they bring fans from YouTube to the movie theater. Insidious: Chapter 3 has a good chance to achieve box office success of its own; the first two films in the franchise were both commercial hits.