Hello, Movie Mavens! Welcome back to the B Movies Blog. Today, we’re popping Zepotha into the ol’ VCR.
First and foremost, welcome to the first edition of Internet Oddities, a brand-new series here on B Movies where we talk about little internet mysteries and odds and ends that I enjoy!
Secondly, let’s kick things off with the “mystery” of Zepotha, an allegedly “lost” horror movie from the 1980s.
I first heard about Zepotha in one of Loey Lane’s Scary Side of TikTok videos, and I was immediately fascinated by this concept.
We know that I’m all for guerilla marketing, and I think this is a prime example of doing it well.
But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
In 2023, TikTok users started making videos recounting plot details about a horror movie from 1984 called Zepotha, with one of my personal favorites being the one below from mondayhatesyout00.
Video source: mondayhatesyout00
Additionally, people began commenting on TikToks and telling the creator or creators that they looked like certain characters from the film.
Long story short, the story of Zepotha began spreading like crazy around the internet with some people believing it to be an example of the Mandela Effect while others thought it was another crazy case of lost media.
However, neither of these things were true.
In fact, Zepotha never existed. Yes, you read that correctly.
In fact, the entire idea was cooked up by musician Emily Jeffri to promote her album, which was ,fittingly enough, titled, SOUNDTRACK FOR AN 80’S HORROR MOVIE.
In the original TikTok where Emily pitched the idea for the Zepotha hoax, the music clipped was actually one of her songs.
Video source: emilyjeffri
Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the criticisms of this guerilla marketing campaign.
It did upset some users because with some mental illnesses, people have a hard time distinguishing reality from fiction, so it was difficult to tell whether or not this film was real, thus making the hoax upsetting to certain people.
The same criticisms were also made for another fake film that spread on Tumblr called Goncharov that we’ll get into in another piece.
And that’s more than fair. I see how this could be confusing or cause people distress.
For someone like me that works in marketing, I think this is brilliant, but I think that the criticisms of the Zepotha hoax are still valid.
Moving on.
I think it was really interesting to see how creative people got when talking about the “plot” and “characters” of the film, as well as how quickly people hopped on board to Emily’s idea.
Also, Emily held a Zepotha film competition with a￡500 prize and has said that she wants to do an entire Zepotha-themed album sometime in the future.
Overall, Zepotha, in my opinion, was a really cool creation that was part viral marketing and part social experiment.
But most importantly, it’s an internet oddity.
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