Too squeamish to attend the Captivity premiere party that After Dark Films provocateur Courtney Solomon recently promised would be so debauched that it would likely bring about the total collapse of Western Civilization ourselves, we dispatched unshockable Defamer Special Correspondent on Looking Into The Eyes of Evil and Laughing Nick Malis to Privilege last night, hoping that he would emerge from the ritualistic promotional flaying with enough of his sanity intact to file a report on his experience. Luckily for us, he did survive the ordeal, though not without some psychological scarring associated with prolonged exposure to a carefully coordinated attempt to offend his sensibilities. His report follows, along with a link to our photo gallery of the event (which you can skip to by clicking here, if you're the impatient type.)

Having already had the release date of his beloved Captivity delayed by the MPAA's displeasure over an accidental billboard campaign depicting step-by-step instruction on how to capture and torture a B-list actress, and recently having witnessed the bombing of the higher-profile Hostel Part II, desperate, self-consciously controversial After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon is trying to salvage his movie's box office prospects by bragging to the NY Times about the over-the-top coming-out party he's throwing to celebrate his movie's arrival in theaters. Boasts Solomon about the upcoming premiere orgy at Privilege:

The list of victims in the aftermath of After Dark Film's decision to grab some easy publicity by erecting offensive billboards to advertise thinking man's snuff film Captivity is a long and tragic one. Among them: the countless impressionable children involuntarily subjected to the graphic, psyche-scarring images looming dangerously close to their schools, After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon, whose more toned-down promotional ideas were ignored by a renegade printer bent on destroying him, and star Elisha Cuthbert, who is suffering from unprecedented levels of awareness about how disappointingly a once-promising career has developed. In the latest chapter of the Captivity billboard story, Slate's Kim Masters talks to a representative of a previously silent class of innocents who will be adversely affected by the MPAA's unprecedented sanctions against the movie: the producers:

Slow to fulfill its promise to remove the offensive billboards forcing local motorists to contemplate Elisha Cuthbert's graphic abduction, confinement, torture, and termination as they helplessly idle at traffic-clogged intersections, After Dark Films now feels the wrath of the MPAA, which has responded to public outrage over the unapproved ads by suspending the ratings process and demanding that all subsequent promotion materials be cleared with the organization if Captivity hopes to ever get the R it probably needs to make any money. Chideth the ratings board:

Inspired by the above story of two teenage Saw fans whose mischief is bringing a fresh wave of attention to the hugely successful horror franchise, always-innovative AfterDark CEO Courtney Solomon is scrambling to organize Captivity "phone teams" to call middle-aged women in poor health in key markets, hoping that mysterious messages that their daughters have been kidnapped and tortured by a maniac might induce the same kind of publicity-attracting cerebrovascular episodes that might raise awareness for his little abduction flick.

Back on Wednesday, while we were waiting for all those Captivity billboards featuring Elisha Cuthbert's best work since those unauthorized Vegas escort handbills to come down as promised (how's that going, by the way?), we killed some time by speculating about the next AfterDark Films ad idea likely to draw totally unwanted and unanticipated attention to a small project with a limited promotional budget. Today, THR notes that the studio's lighthearted "Suicide, Don't Do It!" campaign for dark comedy Wristcutters: A Love Story, featuring awareness-raising signage displaying everyone's favorite acts of self-negation, has predictably run afoul of the the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Publicity-shunning AfterDark CEO Courtney Solomon responds:

We've had only one additional report of a Captivity billboard still awaiting removal since this morning's post ("Big one still up at wilshire and wilton next to the 7-11. It's giving the homeless gentleman out front ideas." And this just occurred to us: should we be asking for tips about ones that have been taken down?), but a reader with a good memory passed along this story from a couple of weeks ago, in which a certain, previously obscure small-time studio head who's spent a lot of time lately trying to explain how some OTP ideas mysteriously found their way into his movie's campaign positively glows with pride about the out-of-the -box marketing for another project he's involved in:

Yesterday's self-imposed 2 p.m. deadline for After Dark Films to remove the controversial Captivity billboards turning various Los Angeles intersections into gruesome instruction manuals on the capture, imprisonment, torture, and disposal of B-list actresses has come and gone, but buck-passing CEO Courtney Solomon's clean-up crew seems to be lagging a bit behind schedule, as reports of extant snuff ads have come in: