That was the whole point. They even made the actors stay out of public view for a year, handing out flyers at Sundance that they were “missing, presumed dead”. There were fake police interviews on the film’s website and everything. This was the first time anything like this had been done so I can imagine people were really invested in this movie and thought it was real.
A gentleman never gets cheaper. He just doesn’t immediately raise his prices to keep up with inflation.