Celebrities are great aren't they? Well, no, obviously. But they look good. And ad agencies seem to agree. It's not an uncommon sight to see celebrities heartily endorsing a product and/or event. Whole books have been written as to why this works, so I won't go into the nitty gritty. Basically, it's called brand recognition. We see people we recognise, in this case celebrities, which are a brand to a degree. We see them talking about or using a product. Hence, the product MUST be good, that yoghurt must taste good, what's her name from X Factor eats it, and she's pretty.
And PIF's being essentially a form of advertising, albeit a darker, more sinister brand, they can utilise this technique at times too. There was Jon Pertwee in the 70's bellowing the word "SPLINK!" at us, as he was often prone to do when the Brigadier was getting on his wick. There was John Hurt in the 80's, ordering us all not to catch AIDS. And today's example, from the 90's. Like the SPLINK! example, it stars another former Doctor, the 9th (the ACTUAL 9th). Toothy grinny man himself Christopher Eccleston. A "proper" actor who stars in such proper films as GI Joe: the Something of Nonsense, and Thor 2: its Hammer Time. Its another Scottish cinema ad, but there's only one scary face this time.
Loud techno-hop (that's what its called) blares, this is for the KIDZ (or probably not, as the 15 certificate at the start displays). Christopher Eccleston is in the back of a car, shouting about Keanu Reeves and bus drivers (is this another attempt to look "hip"? Speed came out two years before this PIF). "How fast were you going back there? Hello? HELLO? I said how fast were you going?". He leans in and turns off the radio, which has been playing "Now That's What I Call Generic Dance Bollocks Used To Death On Everything Ever Vol 5". Which leads us to witness the two poor sods in the front, who are as you can imagine, quite dead. And I mean REALLY dead, heads cut open, blood everywhere, we're getting our 15 certificate somehow. "Bit of speed impresses the girls you see, cos he's a bit of a lady killer is are Dave". OK, that got quite a dark chuckle from myself. I don't care if its inter-cut with blank, blood soaked dead eyes, a good jokes a good joke. As you can imagine, Eccleston is taking the tragic death of two people rather well. Suppose you deal with tragedy in different ways. His mood seems to change slightly from jovial to sorrowful, as he pulls his Serious Face and sits back. "What a tragic waste...of a good moter". HA! Take THAT dead people! He pulls that cheeky toothy grin that reminds us that this guy can be fucking scary when he wants to be. Bet he was hired based on the strength of that look alone. We pan out as the techno-whatever blares back, guess the awkward silence was getting to him, that and being surrounded by two mangled bodies (although personally I'd say listening to techno is worse). We get our slogan, which like all good slogans, is a good old fashioned punch in the balls.
Drink like an idiot, Die like an idiot.
And for good measure, we get the words DIE superimposed over the slogan in classic film lettering, cos we're in a cinema? Still, bloody good slogan that, on a level with the "Shame on You" business. Also corresponds with the extremely black humour of Eccleston's character. Whoever he is.
Seriously, who's he meant to be? The drivers mate? Some nutter who just got in the car? Death? I think of him as the latter, as a kind of spectre of death, corrupted by the circumstances of the drivers death, he becomes jaded and mocking. Maybe we're all visited by Christopher Eccleston when we die. Imagine that, his toothy grin standing over your deathbed. Brr...
Or maybe he's Jesus, in a kind of strange semi sequel to The Second Coming. Someone get Russell "Mr T" Davies on the phone.
So many things to love in this naughty little schoolboy of a PIF. Its just so mean. If it were a person, it would be Alex from A Clockwork Orange. There's a thought, if this had been made in the 70's. they could have got Malcolm Mcdowell to do it.
Even the slogans mean, flat out insulting you, the viewer, and the poor dead sod. Why do PIF slogans sometimes speak to us as if we're children?
Because all too often, when they speak to us like adults, we don't listen.
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