It’s a common lament that the art of movie poster design in the 21st Century is dead. Certainly the current tendency to have some random studio flunky slap together the headshots of the lead performers in Photoshop can be disheartening. Here are six movie posters which caught my eye recently for various reasons which are quite different from what you get nowadays. You’ll be shocked. You’ll be disgusted. You’ll be aroused. You’ll be confused. And perhaps you’ll come away from this willing to accept that the ability to design evocative movie posters isn’t all dead… just mostly dead.
The Last Woman on Earth (1960)
I’m sure that poster helped bring in the horny teen boys of the day in droves. And I’m just as certain they all left the theater feeling profoundly ripped off yet were too embarrassed to demand a refund.
They would have good reason for their feelings of shame. For they would have to admit to the theater manager about the lurid fantasies the poster had aroused. About expectations over a battle between two guys for the opportunity to consummate with an unclad giantess whose modesty was solely preserved by a gentle breeze, causing a cloth sheet to waft in front of her area. And that wasn’t the sort of thing you’d willingly confessed to in those days.
And the purpose of the cartoon sun? No idea.
McLintock (1963)
Oh! My!!! Gawd!!!!!
To give you a bit of context, McLintock is to some degree an Old West retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. This explains why the Duke has Maureen O’Hara over his knee and is swatting her hinder. Not so easily explained are the cartoonish sonic lines emitting from the point of impact or the facial expressions that imply that Wayne is afflicted with PBA and O’Hara is getting turned on by the experience. However, it’s the tagline that causes it to cross an event horizon from mere poor taste to straight-up absurdity.
Seriously, “tender loving guy?”
Either the artist has done a poor job at depth perception, or we’ve got ourselves another giantess, this time being menaced by some overly frisky tentacles (why, yes, it was filmed in Japan).
I rather like the look of her spacesuit, with the form-fitting design and the fishbowl-style helmet giving it the look of an SF pulp cover. And since pulp covers were frequently quite lurid, the tentacle monster invading her personal space fits in as well.
The one fly in the ointment is that tagline. “The Green Slime are coming,” just doesn’t sound right. Either go with “The Green Slime is coming” or “The Green Slimes are coming.”
Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975)
How does your vodka flow?
I am curious as to what the artist intended to convey with this imagery. Does the tomato juice possess such high acidity that it dissolved the flesh off her bones? Or is it an attempt to appeal to a necrophiliac variant of the mermaid fetish? Enquiring minds want to know. Whatever the case, I’m skeptical that image actually appears in the movie.
Deathstalker (1983)
Some of you may recall me speculating in one of my MST3K Journals on how the poster for Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell looked like something Boris Vallejo would do. Well guess what? He did, along with posters of the other Deathstalker movies. His propensity for artwork featuring the epitome of human physicality in fantastical settings while clad in apparel that only just covered the wearer’s naughty bits meant that he was in demand during the Pecs & Pulchritude fantasy movie boom of the 1980s. His work can be seen in posters for flicks such as Barbarian Queen, Phoenix the Warrior, and National Lampoon’s Vacation.
I decided to go with the first Deathstalker poster. Most of the others are just a bit too static, consisting of line-ups of the major characters striking a pose. It’s just too reminiscent of the ongoing nadir of Photoshopped floating heads which currently blights movie posters, even if the hand drawn art gives a greater indication of craftsmanship. There’s a great sense of action in this one, with our barbaric hero taking on a loathsome monster with a helpless damsel in its clutches. Though considering that it’s a Roger Corman production, the reality in the movie probably doesn’t live up to the poster’s expectations.
The Enfield Poltergeist (2023)
Just so you won’t fully despair over the current state of movie poster design, I managed to dig up one that at the very least is distinctive. While the window eyes are what stand out the most, there are other aspects of interest. In particular, I find that the skin and the hair look off, almost as if it’s a doll rather than a person.
The question is whether it’s worth getting an Apple TV+ subscription to check it out. On one hand, they do have the Peanuts TV specials. On the other hand, I’m at my limit for paid streaming services, and Tubi more than sates my appetite for cinematic schlock. It’s a dilemma.
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