The members of the boy-band Take 10 are secretly zombies with very good makeup. Once again needing a new lead singer, their manager (Adrienne Barbeau) sets up auditions where the three winners will travel to the band’s island for the final competition. Indie-rocker Shawn (Coltin Scott) doesn’t want the job, but he’s pushed into trying for it by his girlfriend (American Idol contestant Ryan Starr). As the three finalists dance to prove their worth, the zombies decide which one is ready to join the living dead.
I’ll never make it in film marketing. I lack the necessary insights. There are times when I just can’t figure out who would like a particular film. Take Ring of Darkness—who is the target audience for this movie?
With the repetitive use of boy-band music (including repeating the same song over and over and over), and the boy-band dancing and montages, only young “tween” girls could sit through this. But it makes fun of boy-bands, saying the fad has past and implying that they don’t perform “real” music.
The film also has four, pretty young males, living together and displaying their rock-hard abs, searching for a fifth pretty young male. When they find what they are looking for, they all strip down to their tight black underpants, and tie the new guy (also just in his underwear) to a table. So, this is a gay film. Except they never move on each other, they sleep with female groupies, and the lead is shown to be heterosexual.
Let’s not forget this is a zombie movie. Zombies, with their decaying flesh, are rarely thought of as a turn-on (which messes up most tween girl and homosexual fantasies). Zombie fans love blood and gore, of which there isn’t any.
As the band’s secret is given away immediately and the story goes in a straight line to the end, this isn’t for fans of mysteries or complex plots. Also, as this band has been killing very noticeable people with connections to the press, and no police have ever come calling, this is only going to be enjoyed by those who don’t pay attention while watching.
So, this films is for simplistic, unobservant, ten to twelve-year-old, necrophilic homosexuals, who dream of being girls and dancing to boy-band music, but hate that about themselves, and are convinced they should be attracted to girls and listen to alternative rock. Now to me, that sounds like a pretty small niche. But as I said, I just don’t understand marketing.