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by dubfan 4420 days ago
The opposite effect, a bad movie being rated highly, also occurs. One example of this is with the film "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520498). This film was panned by critics on release and was a complete flop at the box office. Its IMDB rating languished until sometime last year when it began to rise. Around the same time, a bunch of poorly-worded unequivocally positive reviews showed up on the page, all following the same pattern (including one that appears to have been run through a translator and back). The rating made it up to 8.0, although it's since fallen to 7.6. If it's not the movie's production or marketing team involved in this clear manipulation, I don't know who it would be, as I can't see that this movie has any kind of cult following.
2 comments

I suspect it's someone testing out their automated review-submission software ... try it on something so obscure it won't get noticed for awhile if at all.
It could be the same sorts of people that write raving reviews for the 3 wolf moon shirt on Amazon.
Unlikely, the positive reviews aren't humorous and this film is basically unknown except to people like me who are obsessed with marketing flops.
so 4chan?
Plausible