He’s untraceable because he uses the internet to kill people, get it? And they’re going to market it on the internet virally, because that’s what every executive with half an idea thinks is the thing that will make his movie stand out (and it is always hims, ladies).

The great thing about viral marketing online is that if you really don’t care, it’s really easy to ignore. We were on top of shit when the Joker started making people run around the country for The Dark Knight, and we stopped by the Cloverfield ARG (Alternate Reality Game) to see if it was going to shed any light on the monster, then the monster ended up being some sort of shaved goat left over from Alien Resurrection.

Turns out the ad campaign for the movie Untraceable has gotten pulled from Facebook. The ad was centered on a page called “Kill With Me,” just like in the movie. The more Facebookers who friended the page, the more one of the film’s torture scenes was revealed on the website.

Before the whole scene was revealed, Facebook pulled the page under it’s “pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene” clause.

A similar instance occurred when Untraceable was pulled from the smaller social networking site Seesmic, when one of it’s users who had been interacting normally with community members suddenly disappeared only to resurface claiming to be the victim of torture. Seesmic took it seriously and pulled the ad.

Dan Light, PPC head of interactive, welcomes the controversy caused by the Facebook ban but rejects suggestions that the hard-hitting campaign sought trouble.

“I am surprised and disappointed that Facebook has taken this action,” he said. “These sorts of social media campaigns are the only way to be competitive at the moment.”

Here’s the thing Dan, viral marketing like you are pulling is cool, but doesn’t really work within the framework of another site. Not to mention, a good argument can be made for not doing viral marketing with horror movies at all. People are fine if 100 of their geekiest friends dress up like the Joker or wear Slusho t-shirts. That’s the inside joke that makes marketing work.

On the other hand, simulating people dying based on web traffic is a good premise for a movie, not a marketing campaign. Anyone who knows the movie already will know it’s fake, but if people can’t tell it’s fake they are either going to hate your movie or love it for all the psychopathic reasons.