What The??

Filmmaker Claims New GEICO Spot Ripped Him Off

By Patrick Coffee 

Comedian/filmmaker John Freiler took issue with GEICO today.

Specifically, in a tumblr post and a series of related tweets, Freiler claims that the newest spot from The Martin Agency stole its premise from a film he and his co-creators released last year:

“GEICO, a company that is essentially a sentient collection of irritating pop-up ads for your TV, copied our film down to its marrow. This is not awesome or fun or great.”

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Here’s the film in question, which scored more than six million views by inverting all the cliches that drive the horror genre:

…and the latest GEICO spot after the jump.

…so rather than making sensible decisions like the characters in the film, these GEICO actors come close to making the very obviously wrong choice in each case. From Freiler’s post:

“GEICO ripped not only our premise, but the TONE, the FEEL of our film. The editing, the cinematography, the music…they even swiped our idea of having the psychokiller’s confused reaction be the funny button that ends the short.

I find it completely hard to believe that GEICO’s ad’s similarity to ours is a coincidence.”

Similarities exist, though we doubt the claim would hold up in court — and Freiler agrees.

Here’s an amusing coincidence:

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