Gogol. Terrible Vengeance is a Russian historical mystery thriller based on the life and works of the actual Nikolay Gogol, but strongly fictionalised — the famous writer is fighting witches, ghouls and other evil spirits.
This 2018 film was also the conclusion of the trilogy that was supposed to finally reveal many secrets, including the main one: who's hiding behind the mask of the series' antagonist, the Dark Horseman.
In order to keep people guessing, a set of character posters was created, showing each of the key characters with a hint that they could be the Dark Horseman, with a tagline "Everyone Has a Dark Side". The teaser posters helped boost the interest of the audience and ignite the discussion that would only be settled on the day of the premiere.
No, I will not tell you who the bad guy is. Hint: he's not even on a poster. Also hint: he's not even a he!
The creative marketing campaigns of the previous Gogol films were known for their smart cross-genre approach, and this time the task was to take it even further.
Various creative concepts were suggested, including a scare prank with the Dark Horseman in the actual Gogol Museum, Horseman's surprise appearances during the 2018 World Cup festivities in Moscow, teaming up with prominent Russian rock stars to create the original soundtrack and so on.
One of the most noticeable activations was the appearance of animated Gogol (voiced by the actor who portrayed him in the film) in the popular animated series Meet Bob, in a special segment called Bob in Dikanka. The episode gained over 1,5 million views and many reviews by bloggers.
Another ambitious project was NeuroGogol — that saw the creation of a brand new short story by no one else but Gogol himself — despite of the fact that he's been dead for over 160 years. However, with the help of neural network and in collaboration with a famous Russian science fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko this has become possible. The project became an instant hit online and was awarded with the prestigious Tagline Award for the Best PR-campaign.
The film Gogol. Terrible Revenge opened on August 30th and became the most successful film of the trilogy, praised by both the audience and critics, resulting in a whopping 1 billion of the box office.
