Haunted House Images

Smell-O-Vision, Percepto and other gimmicks used at the movies

With increasing evidence that audiences are turning against the current trend of 3D, Rodriguez isn't the only one hoping that combining sound and vision with smell could prove a hit. It was announced last month that Samsung has partnered with scientists at the University of California, San Diego to create aroma-synthesising televisions, capable of reproducing up to 10,000 different smells - a technology that could also be fitted in cinemas and even phones.

Usually falling under the umbrella term "Smell-O-Vision", the use of scents in conjunction with moving images is almost as old as filmmaking itself. While it may be the most famous in-cinema gimmick, it certainly isn't the silliest.

Smell-O-Vision

Combining film with scents is believed to have been invented in 1906 when a Pennsylvania cinema owner used a fan to diffuse the smell of rose oil during footage of a Rose Bowl American football game. Walt Disney also briefly experimented with using aromas but abandoned the idea due to its hight costs. The first film release in which smells were used to complement a narrative was 1959's Scent of Mystery , during which the aromas of grapes and pipe tobacco wafted into the cinema through special pipes (this was the patented Smell-O-Vision, created by the Swiss national Hans Laube). However, some complained that the scents diffused too slowly, prompting bouts of loud sniffing, and audience members in the balconies sometimes missed them altogether. Released only a few weeks later, the Far East travelogue Behind the Great Wall , was one of the better ones. The haunted house movie allowed audience members to decide whether or not they were "brave enough" to see the film's ghosts. This was done by giving each ticket-holder a visualiser - essentially a piece of card with two cellophane filters, one red, one blue. Because the blue-tinted ghosts were superimposed on top of the black-and-white film, they were only visible to audience members plucky enough to look through the red filter.