Viral Review: 9

Shane Acker’s 9 has been in theaters for a couple weeks now (read my review here). The viral has since died down, so it looks like it’s about time to review it.


Sites used:

Scientist’s Facebook

Scientist’s laboratory


9’s viral campaign initially kicked off back in mid-June with the scientist’s Facebook page, as well as an interactive viral site that showed you around his laboratory.

Periodically, new clues and hints would pop up in his lab that would reveal new secrets within. One of these were the letters in ‘hope’ sprawled across the lab, which, when clicked on, would give you a symbol that you would then enter into his typewriter, giving you an exclusive interview/clip from the movie. These little things, while nice, were all the viral really did. There was nothing more to it than just some little cast interviews and extended clips that were already in the trailers.

A few days before the movie released, however, a site was found off of 9experiment that let you save a ‘talisman’ for the future, should any life forms find it. In said talisman, you left pictures of yourself along with a block of text with your memories and/or hopes for the future, along with whatever else you had in mind. A cool feature, but still lacking anything majorly ‘viral’.


Did the sites play into the movie at all?

If you followed any of these sites prior to seeing the movie, you will have a better, while still minimal, understanding of the backstory and universe in this movie. The sites are never mentioned (as expected), but in the scenes where you’re in the scientist’s lab, there are definitely things strewn about that one might recognize from his lab site. Other than that, nothing is really connected from viral to film.


Final Grade: C-


How can something be present and absent at the same time? What did you think of the viral campaign for 9? The film is currently in theaters.