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Fake Cloverfield Websites Exposed: ABZ3293.com and ParasiteMovie.com

Posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 by Peter Sciretta

ABZ


It started with this whole Ethan Haas fiasco. It seems like a new website appears everyday claiming to be the next official Cloverfield viral website. The problem is 99% of the websites are obvious fakes, yet the internet chatter continues to consider them legit. We’re getting sick of all the false information still floating around, so we’ve decided to make it our mission to expose the more widespread fakes. Here is a round up of sites that are NOT connected to Cloverfield’s viral marketing plan:

abzwebsite.jpg

ABZ3293.com: If you go frame by frame through the 1080p version of the Cloverfield trailer, right before the Statue of Liberty head incident, you might notice a black SUV with a license plate that reads ABZ 3293. See the photo at the top of this posting. The website features the following posting:

“I am in need of the driver of an SUV - New York Plate ABZ 3293
He has an item, that is considered a family heirloom.
If you know who this person is, or where I could find him please leave a comment.”

The post has over 207 comments at the time of this posting, so obviously people think this website is connected to the movie, but it isn’t. On the top right corner of the website’s design, you will find a bunch of links. The site claims that the linked websites linked to the ABZ website, but that isn’t true. The top link in this section and in the blog roll is to a 21 year old German student/ freelance web designer. My guess is that he could be the one responsible for this site. The other links appear to be obvious advertisements. Why would Paramount link a swing sets depot? Whomever set up this page is probably trying to raise the pagerank of these pages in Google. The domain name was also registered on July 10th 2007. Don’t you think that Paramount probably would have registered and created the websites that will be used in this viral web game before the trailer was released theatrically on July 2nd?

parasite.jpg

ParasiteMovie.com: Aside from the sad looking logo, badly cropped eyes from the Bad Robot logo and the countdown till the next Evan Haas message (which should be proof enough that the site is not legit), ParasiteMovie.com features a link to some free game website. If Paramount were running this website, they would not be trying to promote some lame badly designed online game website. It’s an obvious ploy to drive traffic to the game website. This site was also registered following the worldwide release of the movie trailer, on July 7th 2007.

Remember, as of right now, the only official Cloverfield websites are 1-18-08.com and Slusho.jp.

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Action/Adventure, Gossip/Controversy, Movie Marketing, Paramount Pictures, Sci-Fi, ,

  • rainbowsatan6
    Has anyone chacked out this www.slushozoom.com site?

    It says "In the beginning, there was more than one to inherit the wind. The sea is the womb. One overcame the other. Extinct does not always mean dead."

    Press ctrl-A and even more infor is revealed. "The meek shall not inherit the earth. All is not as it appears."

    Theres also links to some genetics site, the Slusho site, a cocaine energy drink site (click the periods at the bottom of the page), a cholera vaccine drink site, (I'm noticing alot of beverage related material) a .25 cent bath donation site (it shows an octopus taking a bath), and a link to an old Japanese movie called Furankenshutain no kaijû: Sanda tai Gaira (yup you guessed it, A giant monster created in some kind of genetics expiriment gone wrong), and last but not least a page on Japanese UFO sitings.

    Thats the summarized version of the site and it links. go there and check the links out for more detailed info.

    I have no idea if this is another B.S. site or not but its worth checking out I think. Thats my contribution for the day.

    What do I think? Gargantua goes through coke withdrawl and takes it out on New York.
  • Mel
    slushozoom.com was only registered on 07/11/, that means it's not legit, either. No No need to even spend a single second with it, I'd say!
  • I don't think the ABZ3923.com site is fake....

    You forgot that the movie is shot via a camcorder in terms of quality.. putting out a downloadable template like that only fits the theme...
  • cj
    what i dont get is. there in new york but that plate is a European plate? wierd
  • Voltron
    and excatly were is this european plate you are seeing??
  • dbunker
    It appears that the Ethan haas site is for D-War,
    both characters are named Ethan (albeit different names)
    and the date 8-01-07 is on the D-war site,
    which coincides with the date given during the Ethan Hass puzzles.
  • I think it's funny how you blog as if this is news. The authenticity of this sites have been debunked for a few days now (parasitemovie.com) and the other is just plain obvious that it was created solely for gaining traffic.

    There have been other sites+forums out there that have explain in depth why these sites are fake, versus a "let's look at the whois information" and/or "content."
  • Jordan - As I wrote in the article, these sites are obvious fakes on first look. But I frequent many forums, messageboards, comments threads where people still talk as if they are part of Cloverfield's viral web. I wrote the article because I wanted to make it clear to the /Film readers that these sites are in no way legit. It also helps people who will be searching google looking for answers.
  • Apparently it's not that obvious that these sites are fake by first look, according to your statement of "But I frequent many forums, messageboards, comments threads where people still talk as if they are part of Cloverfield’s viral web."

    Understandable why you blogged about it, but you don't provide viewers with concrete evidence. It's apparent that what people don't know, they can't believe and/or try to find more out about it. I think if you included a little more details, it would've warranted blogging about, but posting up some screencaps where you comment on the quality of an image, is hardly enough to warrant your viewers to believe what you're saying.
  • Jordan, the evidence in both of the cases above includes link spam and domain registration dates. That is enough to prove both sites are not legit.
  • You're obviously taking what I said out of context. I am not denying that those sites were created for traffic (if you visit my website, you can see I've already blogged about the issue) but what I said to you was that you simply can't expect YOUR viewers to base their decision off of some crappy images.

    All I was saying is that you might want to just include EXACTLY why these sites are fake. Eg: actually post up the whois for the domain, post up how the owner for parasitemovie.com had been spamming posts relating to 1-18-08, and on YouTube.

    That and you're also missing a lot of other websites out there (eg: slusho.org, anti-christ.com, and some others I can't remember off the top of my head.)

    I'm just saying that if you're going to blog about it, give them EVERYTHING not just saying "Aside from the sad looking logo, badly cropped eyes from the Bad Robot logo..." because basing it off of quality isn't evidence.
  • I'm not taking what you said out of context. You said All I did was post some crappy images. Untrue. I pointed out that both sites were self promoting link spam for other websites which Paramount would not be involved with. I also pointed out the registration dates of both domains. Whois information does not really tell you anything. I can register a domain as JJ Abrams if I wanted and give the address of Bad Robot productiuons. I didn't post that information because it can be easily faked.

  • Oh, and for the time being we've decided to cover only the widespread fake websites. There is no point giving the smaller sites more exposure.

  • Well that's odd you would say "Whois information does not really tell you anything."
  • Now you are twisting my words. The only thing the Whois information can 100% tell you is the registration date and possibly the web host. As I said above, the other information can be easily falsified.
  • Actually, I didn't twist your words around--you set yourself up for that. WHOIS information provides legitimate information excluding the registrant's address.

    @Peter, since this blog is using Wordpress, you should send Jim's comment to spam. I've already had a few comments like that and have already marked as spam with Akismet in hopes of being able to give other blogs the change to filter out that crap.
  • anne non ee muss
    just because the site was registered post-trailer doesn't automatically qualify it as illegitimate, neccesarily. (in this case, slushozoom.com.)
  • anne non ee muss
    and "theparasitemovie" doesn't sound like a very viral-styled website URL to begin with, does it? more along the lines of, i don't know, a fan site?
  • That's quite interesting. I have a blog that tries to sort out all the mess.
  • Adros47
    I notice that the names of the inventor of Slusho and her father, Noriko
    and Ryouta (see http://slusho.jp) are characters from the movie "Godzilla
    Vs The Sea Monster" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_vs._the_S...) Coincidence?
  • Chuck
    The Parasite Movie site is showing the trailer because JJ is trying to send a signal.
  • Jay
    Guys and gals,

    Its called Viral advertising. How it works is you created a series of web sites. None of which have anything thing to do with what you are advertising. The human mind is curious and doesn't like secrets. So if you keep feeding it more and more, eventually it will get hooked on the desire to know what is going on. Just like this movie, you were give a trailer that showed you nothing, so they wait a few days, then start to let little fake things out, some mixed with hits (only if they are nice), then more and more site like this one pop up. Eventually the buzz/ virus has taken everyone and all of you want to know what it is. Even if the movie sucks, you have to know if your theories were even a hair right. So, congratulations each of you has been infected with the virus that is this movies viral advertising.

    PS. The movie is being made by Paramount, who does not own the rights to Godzilla. Also, when filming all the Alias episodes, to keep them secret they are called Slushos. It's a trick to throw devoted fans off their tracks.
  • Jay
    The Parasite, it is the virus that is this form of advertising.
  • Daniel-San
    Guys if you go back now to Parasitemovie.com....it gives you the teaser for
    cloverfield now. So I think this site was always legit which means this car liscence
    plate site may be legit as well. I dont think you should discredit a site because
    of when it was created. Remember there are always new marketing ideas that
    may have been created after the release of the teaser.
  • jez
    hi, I am the german student dude, and I would like to tell you that I have not setup this website. Seriously.
  • Daniel-San
    Guys if you go back now to Parasitemovie.com….it gives you the teaser for
    cloverfield now. So I think this site was always legit which means this car liscence
    plate site may be legit as well. I dont think you should discredit a site because
    of when it was created. Remember there are always new marketing ideas that
    may have been created after the release of the teaser. Even ideas that were
    thought of beforehand while they were filming and before they released the
    teaser. It's called being prepared. Also don't discredit Ethan Haas just because
    they got a so called letter from "JJ Abrams" stating it was not connected.
    anyone could have sent it. Until I see him in an interview be it audio or footage
    and says so then it's still a consideration.
  • Man
    There is more mysteries to this movie and the next than u expect...
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