If you watch Space with any regularity, or Bravo! or Drive-in Classics or have recently been within earshot of anything else owned by CHUM, you almost certainly know about Decoys. Promos for the teen-targeted sci-fi flick have been running all but constantly on CHUM outlets since the holidays – descending, like so many invading UFOs, from the digitals, down past the specialties, to the conventional NewNets and Citytvs. On Space these days the Decoys ad seems to play more frequently than the station ID.

‘We’re promoting the hell out of it,’ says Paul Gratton, the channel’s VP and GM, with a laugh.

All that airtime is worth roughly $1 million, to which the distributors in English and French Canada are kicking in another $850,000 of P&A, hyping the CHUM-branded picture with still more radio and TV spots, plus some print ads. Everyone will learn if they got their money’s worth after Feb. 27 when Decoys opens wide on 100 screens.

The picture is the first of several that will bear the CHUM name – a teen road movie will follow this summer – but it is also the latest of Canada’s experiments with low-brainer, commercial movies. Decoys has been designed from the get-go for mass audience appeal, in keeping with Telefilm Canada’s goal of boosting the domestic box office and its 2002 ruling that gave broadcasters indirect access to the Canada Feature Film Fund.

The pic stars Cory Sevier (Black Sash) as a college freshman stalked by deadly aliens that are disguised as drop-dead gorgeous women. Baywatch’s Nicole Eggert costars with Stephanie von Pfetten (Posers), Kim Poirer (Paradise Falls) and, strangely, Enis Esmer, host of The Toronto Show on CHUM rival Toronto 1.

Director Matt Hastings (The Outer Limits) shot in Ottawa last year for producers Neil Bregman, Franco Battista and Tom Berry. The $5-million Ontario/Quebec copro also got cheques from Telefilm, Space, The Movie Network and Reel One Entertainment.

To succeed, the 14A-rated picture needs to hit its target audience, mostly teenage boys. Hence all the hot alien-on-alien action. ‘If you’re going to go with a wide release, really populist, you’d better be extremely focused who you aim it at,’ says Gratton. ‘Whether people like [Decoys] or not, no one will be able to say it’s not aimed at a specific audience.’

Gratton thinks a poor match between teens and genre is what killed Foolproof. Not many ‘male under 25s’ will line up to see a heist picture, but most have probably seen Species, Legend of the Overfiend and/or Heavy Metal more than once.

But how to reach that audience caused a split between the producers and the picture’s original distributor, ThinkFilm, which favored a gradual, platform release over the ‘all guns a-blaring’ charge now underway at Christal Films (French Canada) and Lions Gate Films (English Canada).

Kids don’t respond well to quiet releases, says Sylvain Gagne, VP of distribution and marketing at Christal, which is coordinating the Decoys campaign. A movie needs a big push to get their attention.

‘What we’re hearing from teenagers is they can’t wait to see the film,’ says Gagne. ‘The trailer is very powerful and the spots on TV are getting great buzz.’

Quebec distributors also know a thing or two about competing with Hollywood – witness the success of Les Invasions barbares and La Grande seduction – and it is hoped that Christal will be able to apply those same skills to an English-language film.

Decoys was originally slated to come out late last summer, but lingered in post as its many special effects were added. ‘Some of the initial stuff wasn’t up to our standards, so we went back and punched it up,’ says Gratton. ‘Now they’re probably the best effects in the history of Canadian film. I can’t think of one Canadian movie that had this amount or quality of special effects.’

Rather than compete with the highbrow fall season, the release fell back to January. It moved again to avoid a rash of teen movies due that month from Hollywood. Opening on Oscar weekend isn’t ideal but, on the bright side, there’s less direct competition.

‘In a sense I’m glad Decoys broke away from that [January] pack,’ says Gratton. ‘January is generally such a dumping ground. By February there’s room in the market for something to break out.’

-www.decoysthemovie.com