Music of it all

Every now and then, we'll encounter a movie poster that makes us instantly think of that song (and no that happens not only with La Bamba or Great Balls of Fire).

Now who's gonna dare to argue with the Moody Blues as going along best with this highly erotic poster for Emanuelle II?







David Bowie's song must have been what John Carpenter had on his mind when he came up with his movie.
A true classic, both the movie and the song, although I prefer to watch the movie over listening to the song.
Karen Allen has beat David Bowie hands down for me.







For Nekromantik we have two artists competing for doing the honours:
The Böhse Onkelz probably are the ones that earn this place, but for those that like their music a bit more cultured we still want to offer Alice Cooper as an alternative.










I'm never quite sure if it was Bruce Springsteen's song, that influenced the script to Natural Born Killers or the true crime case Bruce was referring to in his song.
Doesn't matter eitherway, my advice: Listen to Bruce tell the story and skip the movie altogether, 'cept maybe for the last half hour when Robert Downey Jr. gives a performance that almost saves this piece.







Who could better illustrate the innocence of this drawing than the angelic voice of Allison Krauss.

Wish I was there...

Art comparison

Lovely minimalistic aproach. Notice how both are top to bottom follow (western) reading direction.




















Two very literal uses of framing to direct the viewers eye, incidentially(?) both posters are from around the same time.






































I hate it when they do that!
The Last House on the Left and The House that Vanished have in reality nothing in common although the poster art suggests quite diffrently, only Inferno and The Psychic do share a common genre if not, as the art is supposed to have you suspect, the same director.




















Given the cult status of William Lustig's Maniac it's save to assume that the designer for this Hostel teaser was aware of the older poster art, is it a nod to the former gore master?

What's on their wall...

A new category, yay!
Starting this month I will, when ever I feel up to it, add a picture from a movie showing a (movie) poster on the wall of one of our fictious acquaintances room, and it will be labled with the Off the wall tag so you do not have to read only about what I put up on my wall.

The start makes a picture from the deleted scenes from Juno showing (then) adoptive father to be Mark's room where we find the poster to this movie:

Ashamedly I have to admit that I didn't know that movie and had to look it up on the net.

The movie was shot by the underground legend Hershell Gordon Lewis, which I could have thought of before looking it up given that we know from Mark that he is a fan of his work.

He and Juno actually do watch The Wizard of Gore at one point in the movie.

Skip the novel, go for the movie

The movie is loosely based on Guy Endore’s The Werewolf of Paris, a mostly sensationalist, gruesome story that imitates the style of popular ‘true crime’ novels. The movie did admittedly skew the best part of the book, the sadistic relationship Bertrand’s to Sophie through which he finds some peace of mind for a little time although the relation would ultimately have been destined to end with him murdering Sophie, and turned it into a bitter sweet love-story and a promise of redemption for Bertrand’s tortured soul. But the movie did also take the completely random intro from in the book and gave it sense.
Personally I can live without the topics of cannibalism, forced incest and sadism the likes of which could make a even a seventies Euro Trash movie envious, and therefore prefer the movie over the book.

Ghost Story was the first contemporary horror novel I bought and it almost put me off the genre for good. After a highly atmospheric (read: scary!) beginning the books starts to waffle around and after having fought my way through 100pages or more of pointless rambles I flipped to the end to see if there was any point at all to the story and put the book away never to pick it up again since. Years later I saw the movie and the topic of this old men’s story telling club and a drifter with a girl rang a bell.
The movie cuts away all the embroidery and goes straight for the story, although, that much I must grant author Peter Straub, it does water down the impacting original end of the book considerably.
Still, the movie has a flow that grabs you and keeps you ‘till the end, which is something the novel couldn’t do.

Neither the movie nor the book are that remarkable in my opinion, after a great opening sequence including a violent werewolf attack the movie quickly succumbs to a typical ‘American Family’ dynamic. But Thor, the book the movie was based on, is among the few werewolf novels I never managed to get into. Written from the perspective of the family’s German Shepherd I though the writing to be too attention grabbing in it’s own right, so that it didn’t aid the story in the least.
I guess seen as a YA novel it can work, it didn’t however for me. The fact that the movie is good for a distraction and has Mariel Hemingway starring puts it definitively above the novel in my book.

The Dark Half ain’t a bad novel, it just felt atypical at the time for King. It’s a simple slasher the younger King could have handled better, in a more straight forward manner, and exactly that is what the movie does.
It skips all the fancy stuff and makes the necessary connections early on thus straightening out the story and setting it at the needed quicker pace the book missed for me.

Oh that poster style looks familiar doesn’t it?
Premonition with Sandra Bullock is harkening back to this.
But what's really remarkable about this poster is that in a as Star Driven world as Hollywood is, Stephen King holds more importance than any of the actors or the fact that 'Zombie' father George A. Romero directed the movie. No, everybody has to take second place behind King, the man has managed long since to become a living trademark and he's holding that position longer than any other contemporary author.

Copycat

Hard Candy from 2006 counts without a doubt among the greatest poster designs, presenting its subject matter with a remarkably inventive take on the image of Little Red Riding Hood.

It creates an instant sense of danger and violence, never needing to shed a single drop of blood, and like the movie it cleverly plays with our perception, leading us to draw wrong conclusions about what we are seeing, while playing with completly open cards.


The creator of the poster artwork for the 2007 movie Descent hooks up with the least imaginative rip-off possible, freely following the old proverb:
Why work if you can steal?

This is a long standing custom especially in the video market, and with some genres, like the Porn industry, the outcomes can be actually quite funny, witty even, worthy images of their own merit. Unfortunately a lot more often they simply follow the same example as Descent does, stripping the original idea of all taste and sublety and presenting us with something devoid of any original thought.

Bitch Slap!

Me likes...

Art Evolution

Simply beautiful

I’ve given you a fair bit of negativity about current posters, it’s time for a change:

A poster that features the less than original allusion “Now that she’s here there will be blood!” as tagline, might seem a odd choice for a post that is aimed at praising some of the current posters, but I really do love the image they created, sans the tagline which is awful. The image perfectly captures the movies origin as a Anime (maybe a Manga, too?) and it has been designed with the target audience in mind (ever so slightly reminding me of D.O.A. – Dead or Alive).
Though, it still strikes me as odd to see a rated R movie aimed at teenagers, shows the change of times.



Admitted, the reason I love this poster is that it brings together two of my favoured items:
Lauren Graham, who hopefully this time stars in a movie that gives her the exposure she deserves and doesn’t just use her as a good-looking backdrop, and books.
Any movie featuring books can’t be bad, and any poster that manages to sneak in a book or two (or even a whole staple!) gets a thumbs up from me!
I might reconsider saying that again should I come upon a poster that spotlights Mein Kampf, but ‘til then I stand by what I just said.


The actress in the foreground is stunningly beautiful, and then there’s this sad look in her eyes mixed with a careful guarded glimmer of hope for … something, something better, anything.
The open sky above seems to speak of a hope for freedom, with the ornate letters used lending a air of spirituality to it, an unfaltering believe in grace.
The poster gives us the ever recurring topic of travelling, of a search for a better place, for a different life, ultimately searching for a destination.

A feeling we all can relate to

In memoriam John Hughes

John Hughes, noted director of 80s "Brat Pack" films like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, has died at the age of 59.

With great sadness I read the news of John Hughes dead.
He shaped my youth like few others did, made it into a magical place to be and I will keep remembering him as the very embodiment of Teen Movies in the finest sense.
Hollywood lost one of their greatest, and we lost a man who set an example in his works for us youngsters worthy to strive after.


In a time when moviemakers seem only to either make movies about sex crazed teenagers void of any sense of belonging or stupid comedies to dumb to enjoy, to lose such a fine moviemaker and writer hurts all the more.


My heartfelt regret for their loss goes out to his friends and family.

Art Comparison

A room with a view...



















Both the Poster to Dante Tomaselli's Horror and Borderland draw on the same mythological and historical context, by rights the in a earlier post shown Hardcore Poisened Eyes should have gone with that imagery, too.



















The fear of getting buried alive set in a modern context.

Picture perfect moment

Every year or so somebody new tries his hand on filming Mary Shelley Wollstoncraft's Frankenstein or the new Prometheus, but non have yet managed to duplicate the elegance of Universal’s unique take on the topic. This one iconic moment with Boris Karloff in the role forever associated with his name offers us a look into the soul of the 'monster' that tells us all about his longing for acceptance from his maker.



In Jurassic Park III this Pterosaur gives us the classic bullying-cop stare:
“Move along there’s nothing for you to see here!” it seems to want to tell us, and after watching the movie we can only whole-heartedly agree with him, there really was nothing to see.

The Cabin in the Woods

I actually intended to cut down on the snarking about posters but then I came upon these "funny" advance posters.

Really people, what are you aiming for?
A best Scary Movie rip-off award?

I do amend that the last line would have had potential if it was a movie about a axe (or chainsaw) wielding maniac, but as it stands it's just a case of reusing a bunch of jokes that weren't all that original when they came up years ago, and they didn't get any better with this treatment.
Makes you fear what the movie will bring when the advance's are already that bad.