Is there any concrete proof that this actually exists? I've heard that term used so much. Did any reviewer or pundit actually say they were paid off?

If a movie gets lots of praise, the internet automatically responds, Oh it's just paid off shills.

Early reaction - Oh, it's just paid off shills.

And then the people who believe this say that if critics and YouTube pundits don't give enough "Good reviews" they would be blacklisted from early screenings and premieres?

I mean seriously, is this a real thing? or just cynical folks making up shit because they can't accept someone likes something they can't believe is good?

Awe I say nice things about unliked movies for free.

Im not connected enough to reviews to have a feel for it. I know there are tik tok influencers who pop up saying the best things about certain horror or streaming movies, and I question it.

I just posted something similar in the politics forum. If someone is getting paid, they’re not dealing with a studio or a producer or anyone attached to the movie. They’re likely dealing with an no-name “promotions” company who they signed an NDA with.

It's real, especially if they tend to like everything. It seems like it's more prevalent on YT nowadays. You'll see people on there get studio assets and they love everything about them yet they know nothing of video and audio specs. In the last month or two there have been several "creators" on YT that have supposedly stopped "reviewing" discs because it was supposedly taking the fun out of movie watching. Right, but they have no problems getting the free shit the studio sends them in exchange for a favorable review.

/rant

It's called marketing.. especially now in the age of influencers. Also, did you forget about the David Manning reviews? Hell, it goes way back to Harry Knowles and Ain't It Cool News...

How about Jeff Craig from Sixty-Second Preview? His positive, enthusiastic quotes were splashed across hundreds of newspaper ads for horrible movies back in the 1990s.

Now that they seem to be able to just use some random reddit comment on a movie poster, what prevents them from just writing that random reddit quote themselves?

There is a guy named Erik Davis, who works for Fandango. He posts reviews on his social media. But, I've heard some say you shouldn't trust his reviews because he works on a Movie tickets platform that works directly with the studios.

The people who professionally write for more well-known publications: they're probably a little more trustworthy
Randos on YouTube? Possibly. Use your best judgement. I've seen YouTubers who admit they get free stuff from companies to review and they admit it isn't great

I do think it's an overstated problem in fandoms. Disney isn't blowing tons of money to make reviewers like a new Star Wars show or downvote DC projects

Harry Knowles was the first person I thought of when I saw the thread title. That Motherfucker was going so far as to get cameo appearances in movies!

I mean, there's something to be said of Harry. His little basic HTML nerd page was really the first to out-scoop the trades because he had tapped into the early days of the internet. Hell, I have even supplied him with scoops, but over time you could see all that got to him. And I don't blame him. That kind of notoriety and Hollywood pull is very enticing. You have this fat, ginger that lived at home that was getting calls from actors, directors and studio execs, and being invited and flown out to Hollywood premieres and shit. Until he turned into a creepy motherfucker. His website ruled for about 5 years from 1995 until 2000, when Sony's Godzilla and TPM did him in as far as being outed as a shill.

Paid off as in cash? No. But there are certain critics (particularly in LA) who get invited to all the studio premieres, get access (re: interviews) with the talent, as well as nice gift bags (and frequent product mailings) in exchange for "kind" reviews - meaning you don't always have to recommend the films, but you better never "trash" them. Those that don't play ball get taken off the list.

It's absolutely true look at the opinions of YouTube critics Chris Stuckman, Jeremy Jahns, Kristian Harloff around the Star Wars sequel trilogy when those movies were being released and then their opinion of Disney's Star Wars now. Maybe they were selling the hype a bit too much but it didn't seem real to me. My favorite takedown of paid movie shills is RedLettter Media spoofing them as the "Nerd Crew".

Oh I'm aware that Stuckmann is being accused of being a shill now that he is no longer critical of movies and only talks about movies he likes. But then again, exactly what "perks" is he getting? He's a YouTuber who lives in Ohio. You don't see him at big premieres in NY or LA.

Films At Home shills. He was clowned as a shill back when the LOTR 4K disc trilogy was released, because his review went up in what seemed to be less than a day. Folks clowned him because it was essentially a movie overview (on his channel) and not a technical review, which is the point. He got the views but also the notoriety for that.

He no longer goes by “Films at Home”. He uses his real name on his channel.

I can see how people thinks he shills for the studios. They send him all kinds of free stuff. In fact, Disney sent him that $1,000 plus box set a year or so ago for free to “review”.

I mean he did just complete writing and directing a feature film. Maybe he wants help with distribution? His Madame Web review was pretty kind.

Yes, he got a lot of shit for that video. But, it was never promoted as a “review”. It was more of an editorial about that movie and why it get made in his opinion. I did watch that video and never interpreted it as a review.

What? Next you'll tell me that record companies used to use payola to get their bands' songs on radio playlists!

Cereal at Midnight has an entertaining channel but some have called him a Kino shill because he gets every title they release and he doesn't review any of them. He covers the releases in one video as a general "this is what came this week/month - then offers commentary on some releases. There's nothing technical about what he does. I do like some of the interviews he gets with industry insiders. I think he got banned over at that other forum for whatever reason.

Haha. Wasn't Peter Travers kind of like that on all the VHS cases?

I was trying to think of a bad movie that maybe Ebert liked or had those blurbs on the VHS cover. I realized I don't dislike movies the way I did when I was younger. Like I was looking at a list, and remembered that Ebert liked Speed 2 and The Happening.

Ebert died, and then film criticism proliferated across social media. This sorta dulled my thoughts on it. I'll enjoy a movie getting trashed by critics. But I'm not sure it influences whether or not I take 2 hours of my time to watch it.

Yeah, Harry Knowles is the first one that comes to mind.

From what I recall, AICN posted an early review for Batman & Robin that trashed the movie, and Schumacher blamed him for the movie bombing. Then, for a few years, Hollywood started kissing Harry's ass (lovely image, there) so he would fawn over shitty big-budget movies like Godzilla '98. I'm not aware of any money changing hands, but he was given a lot of access to film sets, directors, and actors.

Then the scandals started piling up... the Oscar hacking thing, positive reviews for a script that was written by one AICN's pseudonymous critics, and the sex pest allegations against Harry and the Alamo Drafthouse that finally did him in.

If memory serves, he started to get creepy with his Blade 2 review.

One of the tech reviewers I watch did a good video on the topic of sponsored content and other types of paid promotion that falls under the radar because most YouTubers do not properly disclose anything because they simply don’t have to do much beyond a bare minimum.

But the same applies to movie reviews and theme park vlogs and video game streamers and so on. There’s contracts where they have to use very specific language, or can’t talk about certain negative things, otherwise the flow of free stuff gets cut off. That doesn’t apply to everyone, but all but a few influencers are immune to taking some kind of free stuff or accommodations or other perks with the expectation that they’ll give an “honest take” as long as they don’t shit on the movie/product/content they’re trying to sell you. They’re not always being paid hard cash, but getting free trips and swag helps to make it easier to grow their brand and sell more ads on their channels.

On the topic of movies, i feel like this stuff is probably less common these days than any other medium. Maybe that well has dried up, but I stopped watching “reviews” a few years back when I realized most of them were little more than 10-minute plot summaries and “the vfx were good/bad” level of examination.
As cringe as they can be (and I assure you, many are super cringe), at least a more thoughtful “video essay” which usually is more akin to classic reviews, has something to say.

It goes back LONG before Harry Knowles. Hell, before any of us were born. It goes back to the advent of entertainment reporting.

Every decent-size Hollywood film from a name studio has a team of 60-70 people whose entire jobs are promoting the film and only that film.

This encompasses a huge array of different outlets and promotions. Tons of different astroturfing and other "awareness" efforts are but a few tools used by these marketing teams. They are given a budget to work with which gets folded into the huge "advertising" number you hear about thrown around so much when people are figuring out if a movie is profitable.

So shills definitely exist. Are they everywhere? Most of the higher traffic sites/platforms are covered. A lot of pre-release discussion on social media is driven by shills to gin up enthusiasm. Some reviewers understand their place in the movie ecosystem and play along for their own careers.

How organic are the shills on places like YouTube and 4chan? The only goal is generating publicity for the movie, they are even willing to inject negative publicity if the situation calls for it.

The absolute ideal method is creating a viral sensation which builds buzz for the movie without costing the studio a lot of money. I'll leave that up to readers figuring out what semi-recent films were successful with that technique.