Thousands of years ago, when I was but a wee sin against nature, my family frequented a local video store every weekend. Every weekend. We were perhaps obsessive compulsive about our Friday nights or we just really liked throwing money at this video store like it was a stripper. Thankfully, this of course was back before the days of Blockbuster Shiteo, so the video selection in this place was very much skewed towards the owner's preferences. Fuck those customers! Who the hell cares what they want to see anyway? Lucky for me, unlucky for the rest of the universe, this meant that there were lots and lots of horror movies to rot my brain.
Now, despite this sort of amazing luck to have such a ripe and virile selection of horror to choose from, I really cant remember anything specific that I rented from this place. Apparently years of watching bad movies, heavy drinking, and sniffing glue have taken their toll upon the poor old headcheese. What I do remember ...........with startling clarity, is the un-fucking-believable movie posters they had plastered all over this store. This brings me to the point of this pointless and meandering post, and that is that horror movie posters in the 80's were BAD. ASS.
This place was covered wall to wall with some of the most iconic horror images of the time; posters the likes of Pumpkinhead, the Howling, House, and Prince of Darkness. What? You dont remember those movies and/or posters? Shameful! Okay by "iconic" I probably meant the ones that really stick out in my memory, but fear not, they also had the more traditional likes of Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween. These murals of pure terror were made before the likes of Photoshop and are all amazing and intricatly rendered pieces of hand crafted traditional art. And best of all, atleast to the fragile brain of a child, or more importantly my fragile child brain, they were certainly not shy of attempting to gross you the fuck out. Just with the cover, let alone the actual movie.
Looking over these posters makes me miss the 80's. Well maybe not all of the 80's. I could really do with never having to hear Rock Me Amadeus again, but I certainly miss the mindset of film makers way back then. Bear in mind, seeing these wonderfully demented posters and movies through the eyes of an idiot child have painted a much stronger and vivid picture in my memory, what little memory I have after all the drinkin' and heavy metal......in'. Still a lot of these movies I would happily take over current "horror" movies. It feels as if there were more variety in subject matter back then, a buffet of disgusting and terrifying cinema with which to delight and entertain. These days it's all remakes and torture porn. And remakes. Also remakes occasionaly.
Ho hum.
Put on your protective goggles kiddies, it's time to scoff at danger and bust out some science! Let's try a little (mostly)painless test. I promise it wont hurt. I'm curious if anyone's evil, evil brain works the same as my own. Get your pencils ready 'cause here we go!Of the two posters below, one a terribly forgettable "remake" of an eternal classic, the other.....well the classic. Duh. Which marketting material catches your eye more? The terribly.....terribly.......terrible generic zombie movie poster? Or the subtle and infinitly more classy unease of the original? You now have 30 seconds to fill in your answers and pass them to the front of the class.
While a lot of posters back then didn't dick around and were very extreme in their depictions of rotting corpses and gooey aliens from down the street, a few gems were also very subtle and minimialistic, but no less unnerving than the extreme fare. These images somehow walked the line between completely unnoticeable and brilliantly eye catching. Two of my all time favorites being:
And really, that's all I wanted to talk about(well, that and Rock Me Amadeus. God damn you Falco). There are still many talented people making beautiful and creative movie posters these days, but I think these talented shapers of the macabre are almost completely lost in the shuffle of complete shit studios shovel out year after year. "Okay it's time for our movie poster to send over to marketing, but I really dont want to spend a lot of money. Frank your son has Photoshop Elements right? He's hired! Tell him to slap some photos together to make a group shot with some really poor CG blood and bam! Instant movie poster! "
What do you think? Am I a crazy and senile old man pining for the rose tinted days of my youth? Or are you, dear reader, fucking tired of shitty movies and their shittier posters? I'll just leave these here for your viewing pleasure/nightmares.....
-Maxwell Strange
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