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Spooky Movie Night

  • Island of Terror

    Presentation for Friday 02.13.15
    Alex missed a good one tonight. The Amazon UK blu-ray looks great – even revealing some monster-operating wires that no one would notice in old VHS copies. Peter Cushing, as always, brings charm and charisma to the proceedings as he and another scientist travel to a small island off Ireland to investigate a dead body found with (wait for it) . . . no bones! Seems some reclusive scientists on the other side of the island have accidentally bred "silicates" – slimy, crawling slug-like creatures that divide & multiply like cells – who inject a substance that melts down the bones of their victims. One gruesome scene caught us all off guard. Summer was not happy. Still, an overall enjoyable SMN!
  • Forbidden Planet

    Presentation for Friday 02.06.15
    Revisiting a classic of the sic-fi film world this week. Great film with grand ideas, space dudes brimming with testosterone, cute Anne Francis strolling around in her space age mini skirts, an invisible id monster and, of course, Robby the Robot. Only the annoying drone of some of the "futuristic" sound effects detract from an otherwise stellar evening of classic cinema!
  • The Living Coffin

    Presentation for Friday 01.30.15
    13 years into SMN, and I'm always looking for something new that's been off my radar. Enter, the Mexican horror film. Hey, it's a Mexican-western-mystery-horror film – what's not to love! It's a reworking of the classic Mexican legend of the crying woman. Fun and entertaining. Some good creepiness, all while not taking itself too seriously.
  • The Magnetic Monster

    Presentation for Friday 01.23.15
    Curt Siodmak. Really, that's all you need to know. One thing I've learned in 13+ years of Spooky Movie Night, is that Mr Siodmak was kinda The Man. He wrote screenplays for classics like The Wolfman, House of Frankenstein and I Walked with a Zombie. Here he tells a gripping tale of two A-Men (Atomic Men) who are investigating the presence of a strange magnetic field that appears suddenly in a small town. The source is eventually traced to a new atomic element that uses the magnetic field to convert energy to matter. As it grows out of control, it threatens to throw the earth off it's orbit. Classic 50's post-war end of the world potboiler!
  • Dead of Night

    Presentation for Friday 01.16.15
    Now THIS is why I bought that region-free blu-ray player!! Without it, we would have never seen this absolute gem that's unavailable in the US – which would have been a crime! An architect shows up at a country manor for contracted work only to find that the house – and everyone in it – have been appearing in his recurring nightmares. He knows some bad mojo is afoot as he keeps predicting people who enter the story and events that eventually unfold. Several eerie tales unfold in anthology style, shifting in tone without taking you out of the film's grip. The kids and I were blown away. Simply fantastic!
  • Unearthly Stranger

    Presentation for Friday 01.09.15
    Another win for the region-free player as we load in the UK blu-ray of an amazingly intellectual treatment of the same sort of concept explored in the fun, but ultimately less satisfying, "I Married a Monster from Outer Space". Had never seen this one and I was surprised by it's depth of emotion for what is essentially a B movie. I chalk it up to the Brits, who prove again that they can do creepy sci-fi in a though-provoking way that transcends the genre. Certainly earned our applause as the credits rolled.
  • The Quatermass Xperiment

    Presentation for Friday 01.02.15
    The American title of this British classic was "The Creeping Unknown"– and a fitting title that is! This is a creeping, slow-burn of a chiller. A rocket returns from space with one survivor and only empty clothes left of his two crew mates. To make matters worse, there seems to be something very wrong with the survivor...and he's getting worse by the day. Crotchety Professor Quatermass throws his scientific weight around while trying to get to the bottom of what became of the missing astronauts. Tension builds steadily in this cerebral alien invasion film – Fun stuff!
  • The Phantom Carriage

    Presentation for Friday 12.26.14
    Summer was asleep early, so Corbin, Alex and I opted for a rare silent film. The plot sounded compelling: Every year, the last soul to die before the clock chimes in the new year is forced to drive death's carriage for the next year, picking up all the lost souls who have died. The special effects from this 1920 Swedish film were impressive for the period. Sadly, at 107 minutes, the film goes on too long (some editing was needed). What was unexpected was that this ended up a pretty potent tale of redemption. Obvious Christian undertones gave us a good post-film discussion. Would been about perfect if it'd just been about 20-or-so minutes shorter.
  • Planet of the Vampires

    Presentation for Friday 12.19.14
    Beautiful blu-ray transfer of a classic Italian sic-fi that's a bit on the deceptive side where it's title is concerned. Let me say this up-front: This is NOT a vampire film. What it is, however, is some pretty engaging space opera fun. A race of bodiless aliens mess with the minds of space explorers, causing them to violently turn on one another. The dead come back to life, and things start to feel more like a zombie film than anything having to do with vampires. Fun stuff though...lack of actual vampires notwithstanding!
  • The Reptile

    Presentation for Friday 12.12.14
    Last year's Christmas gift of a region-free blu-ray player has led to GREAT fun as I'm able to find stellar Amazon UK discs to replace my washed-out, scratched up, taped-from-TCM copies. Case in point, this week's pristine blu-ray of Hammer's 1966 classic, The Reptile! The film is just some great, creepy fun, and it looked & sounded better than I've ever seen! The story is sort of a werewolf-vampire-creature from the black lagoon mashup. While the kids may not appreciate its technical aspects – they really dug this classic gem from the Hammer House of Horror!

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Monstrous Movie Poster Design

Saucer-men


Martha Hunter: But Doctor, that theory doesn't explain why Jules' and Carson's minds have turned against us.

Dale Drewer: Preservation of the species. Once they were men. Now they are land crabs.

– Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)


With dialogue like that, is it any wonder I love these kinda movies?

As promised last time, we're devoting an entire post to advertising for my favorite little corner of the cinematic realm – classic horror and science-fiction movie posters. 

And you might be surprised by the level of design in some of these. Some are just cheesy (and I love 'em for that), but some are really well-designed pieces of art. Either way, modern posters from this genre are a pale shadow (better than the metaphor I was going with originally) of the ones we'll look at here. Let's dive right in . . .


Crabmonsters Saucermen

:: Attack of the Crab Monsters ::

I'm living proof of the effectiveness of this poster. I had seen pictures of the monsters in my Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine (any other monster mag geeks out there?) when I was the kid – and I had seen this poster. Made me desperately want to see the movie – and that's the point, isn't it? Saw it for the first time just about three years ago and as evidenced by this post's lead-in quote, I was NOT disappointed. It is quite the "classic".

:: Invasion of the Saucer Men ::
Love so much about this one. It showcases two hallmarks of monster movie posters from this era: 1) It makes the monsters look scarier than they really are in the film (they only stand about waist-high – but they DO sport the ginormous head though) and 2) it features sweet examples of the  "you-won't-believe-your-eyes" sort of call-out (think of these as starbursts of their day). I'm referring to the row of four red boxes along the bottom, each starting with the word "SEE". Doubtful these would work on today's jaded audience, but they must've worked back in the day. And when they say "See the Disembodied Hand that Crawls . . . !" they aren't kidding – and it grows an eye on top of it too! Suh-weet!

Kong-1 Kong-2

:: King Kong ::
Flat-out one of my all-time favorite movies of ANY genre. And they produced many posters for this. These two represent my favorites. With the style of illustration and period-specific color palette, this one just oozes all kinds of art deco goodness.

:: King Kong ::
So much to love about this! Love the power and energy all focused and contained in the very top portion of the image. Love the pilot climbing out from the smashed up plane who appears to be looking for a place to safely hit the silk. Love the narrow format. Love that the skyline in the background is curved to really enhance the notion of the action taking place at the top of the world. And love that this is now the third poster out of four to feature a swooning damsel in the clutches of a monster – if you sense a theme here, you may be onto something!

Murders-rue-morgue Dracs-daughter

:: Murders in the Rue Morgue ::
Admittedly, part of the fun here is determining which two posters to pair up; finding a common thread, a visual link or interesting relationship. The bold use of color in this one gives it an other-worldly vibe. Very moody piece of work. And outside of a cape and fangs, Bela Lugosi has scarcely looked creepier. You can bet the gorilla in the background is up to no good too.

:: Dracula's Daughter ::
While both of these work great for horror films – highly stylized, strong light and dark contrast, eerie greenish skin tones – I really love how this poster utilizes a technique that made these films themselves so effective. The scary factor is heightened by only revealing a portion of what it is that's after you, and you're left to fill in rest in your mind.


Mummy Day-sky-exploded
:: The Mummy ::
I actually like this one more every time I see it. The juxtaposed type and figures strike a wonderful balance with each other and it serves to unify the piece as a whole. Love the added detail in words Karloff and Mummy. In a tale of two extremes, this poster for The Mummy fetched a dog-choking . . . wait for it . . . $453,500 at auction – while the next one . . .

:: The Day the Sky Exploded ::
Would have a tough time making a $9.99 opening bid on ebay! This is no great work of art, to be sure, but you have to admire the sheer audacity of it. Apparently the sky exploded on this day with gigantic microwave popcorn – hurtling steaming hot kernels at the freakishly wide-open eyes of an unsuspecting populous. Although, in fairness, they could be cotton balls. "Terror from the sky" indeed. 

7th-voyage Golden-voyage
:: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad ::
There was something else I could see on a movie poster as a young boy that would guarantee my behind in a seat besides cool looking monsters, and that was seeing the name Ray Harryhausen at the bottom. He is still the undisputed master of the painstaking process of stop-motion animation (animating small models of monsters a frame at a time). His name was assurance that the monsters would be spectacular and believable. I never, ever get tired of this movie - one of my all-time faves of any genre!

:: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad ::
Let's see . . . Centaur with one eye? Check. Said centaur locked in battle with a griffin? Very cool, and Check. Crazy six-armed statue come to life wielding swords in each hand? Check. Funky little bat-winged flying man-creature? Check. Ray Harryhausen's name at the bottom of the poster? Check. But y'know . . . you had me at "centaur". Could they have created a better poster to communicate the word "adventure"? I don't think so – this poster screams adventure! And look kids – it's filmed in Dynarama!

Franky Franky-meets-SM
:: Frankenstein ::
Classic.

:: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster ::
Not so much.
Although, in all honesty, the poster for this one does make me want to see the movie more.


Hunchback Not-of-this-eartrh
:: Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) ::
I love both of these posters for their sheer impact factor. Bold creative use of the color red knocks this one out of the park. In terms of reality this misses the mark: Notre Dame isn't bright red and there's no way the hunchback would be in that much shadow while the woman he's holding is that evenly illuminated – but that's why it works! All of these elements serve a larger communications purpose than representing reality. There's a great design lesson in that.

:: Not of this Earth ::
Bizarre looking monster. Fun, slightly quirky font. Use of the the phrase "Somewhere in the world stalks a thing that is . . .". But what sells this from an impact standpoint is the tightly cropped image of the woman screaming in terror. Wonderful composition of the hands. They were trying to sell an emotional impact on their audience, and they nailed it. Sounds like a design lesson in there too.

One-million When-dinos-ruled
:: One Million Years B.C. ::
I can hear the pitch to the Hammer Studios exec: "Got a great idea J.B.! Bunch of dinosaurs chasing Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. We can save money on a script writer and have them just grunt and mumble like real cavemen would have done. We'll even use the money we saved to hire Ray Harryhausen to do the dinosaurs." J.B. asks to see the poster, then shouts "DONE!"

:: When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth ::
Hey, the boys at Hammer Studios are no fools – if it worked so well in 1966, let's give it another whirl in 1970. No Raquel Welch. No Harryhausen. No surprise – a less successful venture. Love the poster though. And nothing says stone-age adventure like actually carving your title out of stone.

Stay tuned as our next adventure takes us across the pond to check out movie posters from Poland! Yes, I said Poland. And no fair "googling" ahead either.

Posted at 05:04 PM in Design in Pop Culture, Retro Design |

Comments

Snap Open Poster Frames Perth

Monstrous is right! I'm sure the kids would love this. I hope you don't mind me taking some of the ideas. :)

Posted by: Snap Open Poster Frames Perth | June 21, 2012 at 11:49 PM

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