Released by the infamous American production and distribution company Troma, The Toxic Avenger was something of a box-office failure on its first release, but subsequent long-running shows on the midnight movie circuit at the Bleecker Street Cinemas in New York City helped to cement its current reputation as a cult classic. The film would go on to become Troma Studios’ most successful film, spawning numerous sequels, spinoffs and even a stage musical. The Toxic Avenger himself even features as their official mascot and this original entry is seen as the film that ‘built the house of Troma’.

Melvin Junko (Mark Torgl) is a social misfit working at the Tromaville Health Club as a down-trodden mop boy who is often at the receiving end of the cruel pranks of a pair of bullies called Bozo (Gary Schneider) and Slug (Robert Prichard) and their girlfriends. One day whilst being chased through the club Melvin jumps out of a second story window and lands in a vat of toxic waste, which burns his skin and completely disfigures him. After running home and jumping in a bath to try and wash the waste off he finds himself mutating into a creature of superhuman strength. The rest of the film sees Melvin fighting crime in Tromaville as the Toxic Avenger, menacing the corrupt mayor Peter Belgoody (Pat Ryan).

The artwork on this British quad is, as far as I’m aware, unique to the poster. I’ve been unable to discover who the artist responsible is so if you have any ideas please get in touch.

The superb original trailer can be viewed on YouTube.

James Cameron’s seminal sci-fi classic The Terminator celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and it cannot be overstated how much of an impact the film has had on cinema and culture in general. The careers of Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger were given stratospheric boosts (not so much poor Michael Biehn) and the concepts of time-travel, and killer cyborgs will forever be tied to what would go on to become the Terminator franchise. The film is also arguably the original 80s action blockbuster and would be followed by a slew of increasingly more muscular, explosive flicks starring the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Wills and, of course, Arnie.

The US poster features an iconic photograph of Arnie alongside a lengthy tagline, whilst the UK quad went for an illustration depicting a battle-damaged Terminator showing the endoskeleton underneath. This poster for the Czechoslovakian release of the film in 1990 (two years before the sequel) features a fantastic illustration depicting the cold steel of the endoskeleton with Arnie’s face above and an exposed cranium with what are clearly intended to be electronic pulses in place of a human brain.

The poster was designed and printed by the Czech artist Milan Pecák. A celebrated designer and artist, Pecák was born in 1962 and studied at the Vaclav Hollar School of Fine Arts in Prague before working as an architect and later as a set designer for several films. It was whilst working on the 1986′ ‘Zastihla Me Noc’ that he was first given the opportunity to work on the film’s poster and from then onwards he was in demand as an artist for posters advertising Czech releases, as well as several American films, including Gorillas in the Mist, Mississippi Burning and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In addition to film posters, Pecák is also an accomplished book and magazine cover illustrator and in his spare time works on fine art painting as well as digital graphics.

Milan Pecák’s official website can be viewed here and features several galleries of his work as well as a biography.

Director Joe Dante‘s Piranha was one of several killer nature films that followed in the wake of the runaway success of Spielberg’s Jaws. Executive produced by legendary schlockmeister Roger Corman and co-written by John Sayles (his first credit and before he began his directing career) the film was also one of the first jobs for special effects maestros Rob Bottin and Phil Tippett. The film begins as a young couple hiking enter an apparently abandoned military complex and jump into what looks like a swimming pool, but something deadly lurks below the water and the pair soon disappear screaming under the surface. Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies), an insurance investigator, is dispatched to try and track down the teenagers and hires local drunkard Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) to help her.

The pair stumble across the complex and end up draining the pool to see if there’s anything at the bottom. When they do a bedraggled man appears from somewhere in the complex and attacks them to try and stop the pool being emptied. Grogan subdues him and the man proceeds to tell them that the water contained genetically-modified oversized killer piranha fish that were intended to be used against the enemy in the Vietnam war. The drainage pipe leads to a river and Lost River Lake, which is home to a children’s summer camp and a holiday resort. The trio set off to try and warn the camp and resort inhabitants but the fish have already made good progress and evidence of their deadly nature is discovered on the journey to Lost River Lake.

Produced on a reported budget of $600k, the film is certainly no classic but is entertaining enough, featured plenty of shocks to keep audiences happy and rake in a significant profit for Corman’s New World Pictures. Universal Studios, the Jaws production company, were all set to sue New World until Spielberg saw the film and gave it his blessing.

This Japanese B2 features artwork by the American artist Bob Larkin (born 1949) who is primarily known for his work on Marvel comics covers, including Savage Sword of Conan and Planet of the Apes. He also worked on covers for other comics distributors, magazines and packaging for toys. Larkin painted a handful of other film posters, including Monster (AKA Humanoids from the Deep) and Piranha II: The Spawning. The Bob Larkin: Illustrated Man site features a load of examples of his work, including many original paintings.

Paul Bartel, the late actor/director who was at the helm of the cult b-movie Death Race 2000 (released a year earlier), stuck with the cross-country car chase theme with this 1976 flick Cannonball, though he removed most of the gore that gave the former film its notoriety. The film and title are based on the exploits of Erwin G. “Cannon Ball” Baker, a legendary bike and car racer who made over 140 cross-country speed runs during his career and put his name to the Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an illegal cross-country race that was run five times during the 1970s. This was the first in a series of films that was based on the idea of illegal long-distance races, with The Gumball Rally seeing release the same year, and the more successful Cannonball Run and its sequel being released at the start of the 1980s.

Whilst perhaps not as star-studded as the later films, Cannonball still has a large ensemble cast with several cameos that are both credited and un-credited, including Martin Scorsese, Sylvester Stallone, Don Simpson and Roger Corman. David Carradine appears as Coy ‘Cannonball’ Buckman, a race driver who has recently been released from jail where he was sent for killing someone whilst driving drunk. He decides to enter the Trans-America Grand Prix, an illegal road race that travels between Los Angeles and New York City. The racing team Modern Motors has promised a contract to either Coy or his arch-rival Cade Redman (Bill McKinney) so he is determined to win.

Because the race crosses state lines Coy will be in violation of his parole conditions, his parole officer (Veronica Hamel) attempts to stop him and ends up being forced to come along for the ride. Two people who have offered to pay his race expenses are also passengers in his Dodge Charger and there are several other racers in the competition, including a surfer dude played by David’s brother Robert and his girlfriend (played by Belinda Balaski). The race soon descends into a violent destruction derby with many of the competitors meeting grizzly ends. Coy will be challenged in more ways than one and the first to cross the finish line isn’t who you might think. Later films in the genre would tone down the violence and deaths considerably.

This Japanese B2 poster features a unique montage design and was printed for the film’s first release in the country in 1977. Note the miss-spelling of the title as ‘Canonnball’.

One of two werewolf themed horrors to be released in 1981, Joe Dante‘s The Howling beat John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London to cinemas by a few months, but both would go on to be cult classics of the genre, even if the latter film won more critical plaudits at the time of its release. Despite hugely different storylines each film features a memorable werewolf transformation scene and The Howling’s one was created by noted practical effects specialist Rob Bottin (The Thing, Robocop), which was his first solo effort away from his mentor Rick Baker. Although he had initially started work on The Howling, Baker had decided to leave the production to work on Landis’ film and handed the reigns over to Bottin. The results are definitely impressive and were certainly groundbreaking for the time, however Baker’s handiwork on AWIL is unforgettable and impressed the judges of the Academy Awards so much that he won the Outstanding Achievement in Makeup in its inaugural year.

Very loosely based on the novel of the same name by Gary Brandner, The Howling’s script was worked on by two screenwriters before Dante brought in John Sayles, with whom he collaborated on 1978’s Piranha to write a third draft. The film begins as the investigative TV report Karen White (Dee Wallace) is on her way to meet the serial murderer Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo) at a sleazy LA porn store as part of a police sting operation. After entering a booth, Karen is surprised by Eddie who is standing behind her and forces her to watch a porno of a young woman being attacked. Karen turns to look at Eddie and her screams attract nearby police officers who shoot and apparently kill him. Severely traumatised by the event and suffering from hallucinatory flashbacks, Karen’s therapist Dr Waggner (Patrick Macnee) refers her to a secluded retreat on the Californian coast called The Colony.

Karen travels there with her boyfriend Bill played by the late Christopher Stone, who was Dee Wallace’s boyfriend at the time and later married her (Stone sadly passed away from a heart attack in 1995), and the pair are welcomed by the residents of the camp, which is made up of several log cabins in a forest near the coast. One night Bill is out for a walk and is attacked and bitten by a werewolf, which is actually Marsha Quist (Elisabeth Brooks) a sultry nymphomaniac who has been at the Colony for months. Later she accosts Bill and the pair make love in the forest as they transform into werewolves together. Karen suspects all is not right and invites her friend Teri (Belinda Balaski), another reporter who is looking into Eddie Quist and has discovered that his body is missing from the morgue, out to visit her. Soon after arriving Teri is attacked and killed by Eddie whom she watches transform into a wolf (with Rob Bottin’s help) and before long Karen discovers the true secret of the Colony. Teri’s partner Chris (Dennis Dugan) comes to Karen’s rescue clutching a rifle loaded with silver bullets.

The film was made on a low budget (circa $1m) and was a commercial success around the globe, making tens of millions of dollars. It inevitably spawned a number of significantly less interesting sequels, starting with 1985’s ‘Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf’. Joe Dante believes that Steven Spielberg saw the film at the cinema and subsequently offered him the directorial job on the cult classic Gremlins (1984).

Despite The Howling’s relatively high profile I’ve been unable to identify the artist responsible for the artwork on this US one sheet, which was also used as the marketing art in several other countries. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch. Note that this particular poster is discoloured somewhat as it is meant to be more orange/yellow in tone, and I believe it’s the result of an error during printing. It’s not the first one sheet for the Howling that I’ve seen with this discolouration and at least three can be seen in emovieposter’s past sales history of the poster. I suspect that a batch of the posters fell victim to an issue with blue/green inks at the time of printing.

James Cameron’s seminal sci-fi classic The Terminator celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and it cannot be overstated how much of an impact the film has had on cinema and culture in general. The careers of Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger were given stratospheric boosts (not so much poor Michael Biehn) and the concepts of time-travel, and killer cyborgs will forever be tied to what would go on to become the Terminator franchise. The film is also arguably the original 80s action blockbuster and would be followed by a slew of increasingly more muscular, explosive flicks starring the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Wills and, of course, Arnie.

The US poster features an iconic photograph of Arnie alongside a lengthy tagline, whilst the UK quad went for an illustration depicting a battle-damaged Terminator showing the endoskeleton underneath. This poster for the Polish release of the film features a stylised silhouette of Arnie as the Terminator with coloured circles, some of which represent the red eyes of the Endoskeleton underneath.

The poster was designed by the celebrated Polish artist Jakub Erol who was born in Zamość in 1941 and graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1968. He worked as a prolific poster artist for over 25 years and designed several iconic images for both Polish and American films. Some of his other poster highlights include the bizarre image he conjured up for Ridley Scott’s Alien and the Polish poster for Robocop. One of his best, in my opinion, is the skull-style poster he created for the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Polishposter.com website features many of his designs, several which are for sale, and the Polish cinemaposter.com website also features three pages of his work. This list of his designs on the same website gives you an idea of how prolific an artist he was.

This photographic image advertising the 1984 schlock-horror Ghoulies is absolutely seared into my memory from visits to video rental stores as a youngster where I would see the then forbidden fruits of the horror section. Illustrated covers by artist Graham Humphreys for titles like Evil Dead and Kindred sat alongside photographic designs that hinted at the horrors contained within. This photo of a small green creature bursting out of a toilet, coupled with a title that in UK slang is another word for testicles, sparked plenty of imagined atrocities committed against unsuspecting male victims who’ve just gone for a nice sit down on the porcelain throne.

The reality is that this image was a complete fabrication that was created for the marketing campaign and used around the globe to market the film. The green Ghoulie does pop up from a toilet during the film but it’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment, it’s also not wearing any clothes (as is depicted here), and there’s certainly no obvious harm done to any genitals during the film. According to the Wikipedia article on the film, producer Charles Band had some involvement in creating the image, although it’s a bit confusing:

According to stories Charles Band tells on his Full Moon Horror Road Show, he was tasked to come up with a great campaign to promote the film. During a brainstorming session he came up with the idea to have the Ghoulie popping up from the toilet. The idea was a huge success and the scene was then shot for the film after the fact. According to Band’s 2012 audio commentary for 88Films Blu-ray of Puppetmaster 2, someone else came up with the idea of the Ghoulie popping out of the toilet. Band actually thought it was a bad idea at first.

The film itself is hardly a classic of the genre but it has aged better than some of the other ‘malevolent creature’ films released around the same time. With that said, most of the effects haven’t held up well, particularly the creatures themselves which are poorly put together and unconvincing, especially in comparison to the creatures seen in Joe Dante’s Gremlins that was released the same year. The film is chiefly set in an old mansion that is inherited by student Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis) after the death of his father Malcolm (Michael Des Barres giving it all he’s got). Unbeknownst to Jonathan, his mother was actually killed during a satanic ritual carried out by his father in which he was meant to be sacrificed as a baby. When a protective amulet prevented the murder being carried out, Malcolm decided to sacrifice his wife instead. Wolfgang (Jack Nance), a member of the cult, takes Jonathan away and raises him so he’s unaware of the situation with his parents.

The film opens with the ritual in which we see the group of small evil creatures (they’re never exactly referred to as Ghoulies in the film) reacting with glee, the film then jumps to a few years later when Jonathan has just moved into the mansion. He soon finds the occult paraphernalia that his father left behind and, for reasons that aren’t clearly explained, decides he wants to continue his father’s satanic practices. His friends and girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan) get caught up in the new rituals and before long the Ghoulies have returned and his father has been resurrected from the grave. All does not go exactly to plan for Jonathan, but Wolfgang is still around and his vow to protect the boy holds strong.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the design of this quad so if you have any ideas please get in touch.

James Cameron’s seminal sci-fi classic The Terminator celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and it cannot be overstated how much of an impact the film has had on cinema and culture in general. The careers of Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger were given stratospheric boosts (not so much poor Michael Biehn) and the concepts of time-travel, and killer cyborgs will forever be tied to what would go on to become the Terminator franchise. The film is also arguably the original 80s action blockbuster and would be followed by a slew of increasingly more muscular, explosive flicks starring the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Wills and, of course, Arnie.

The US poster features an iconic photograph of Arnie alongside a lengthy tagline, whilst the UK quad went for an illustration depicting a battle-damaged Terminator showing the endoskeleton underneath. This poster for the Polish release of the film features a stylised silhouette of Arnie as the Terminator with coloured circles, some of which represent the red eyes of the Endoskeleton underneath.

This Thai poster displays unique, detailed artwork that was painted by Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) who was an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947. If anyone has any more information please get in touch.

Note that this poster is slightly larger than the standard Thai poster size (of about 21″ x 31″) and also note that this poster has sustained water damage to the bottom right side and has lost part of the artwork as a result. A few copies of this poster have surfaced in this condition and it’s believed that they were found in a stack in a warehouse that had sustained flood damage (very common in Thailand, sadly) and were damaged when they were later pulled apart. As a result the level of damage varies in some of the posters. You can see what’s missing on this image of the poster from an old emovieposter auction.

To see the other Thai posters in the Film on Paper collection click here.

Wild artwork by Maciej Buszewicz features on this Polish B1 poster for one of the all-time great parody films, 1987’s Spaceballs. Helmed by the legendary comedian, actor, director and screenwriter Mel Brooks, who was responsible for several other entries in the genre, including Blazing Saddles (Westerns) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Spaceballs set out to send-up the sci-fi genre and did so with great success. Star Wars is the main film in the firing line, but the Star Trek series, Planet of the Apes and even Alien all receive their share of the lampooning. Brooks struck a deal with George Lucas to be able to spoof the original trilogy and even employed his Industrial Light and Magic to handle the alien creature design, as well as asking other companies owned by him to work on post-production of the film.

The story begins on the titular planet Spaceball which is rapidly running out of breathable air. The incompetent President Skroob (Brooks himself) hatches a plan to steal the air from neighbouring planet Druidia by kidnapping the daughter of its King Roland, Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), who is set to marry the narcoleptic Prince Valium (Jim J. Bullock). He dispatches Dark Helmet (a memorable performance by Rick Moranis) on the giant ship Spaceball One to carry out the mission. What they weren’t anticipating is that Vespa has decided to do a runner before the wedding takes place and has disappeared with her droid of honour Dot Matrix (think a female C3PO). King Roland tasks the mercenary Lone Starr (Bill Pullman, essaying a mix between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo) and his sidekick Barf (the late John Candy, as seen on this poster) with tracking Vespa down. With the help of wise and powerful Yoghurt (also Brooks), who is in command of The Schwartz, the gang must deal with Dark Helmet and put a stop to Skroob’s nefarious plans.

Some of the more memorable scenes include the Lone Starr’s interactions with the gangster Pizza the Hut, voiced by long-time Brooks collaborator Dom DeLuise, as well as a scene at an intergalactic diner which features John Hurt playing himself and suffering the same chest-bursting fate he did in Alien. The film wasn’t met with a great reception on its initial release but would subsequently gain a huge cult following, helped no end by the home video explosion at the end of the 1980s. It’s now regarded as one of Brooks’ best films and rumours of a long-mooted sequel were resurrected following the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the end of 2015.

Maciej Buszewicz is a highly influential Polish designer who is perhaps best known for his book cover designs and is the founder of the celebrated Busciewicz Book Design Studio based in the University of Warsaw. Born in 1952, Busciewicz graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and began a career in graphic design. He became an Art Director at the ISKRY Publishing House in 1980 and at the Poljazz Record Company. Four years later he began teaching typography at the Academy and this led to teaching assignments all over the world. As well as books and record covers, the artist has worked on graphic identities, stamp designs and posters. I couldn’t find many other film posters that he worked on, aside from the poster for the Russian drama Commissar, but doubtless there are others. According to this profile on the Ideas on Design site he has won the award for Most Beautiful Book of the Year in Poland no less than 23 times!

This is the Japanese poster for the release of The Anderson Tapes, a 1971 crime film from director Sidney Lumet. It stars Sean Connery and was released the same year as Diamonds are Forever, the film that marked the final time he would officially play James Bond (for Eon Productions). It’s based on a novel of the same name by Lawrence Sanders and had a screenplay written by Frank Pierson who was a producer as well as a screenwriter. Lumet and Pierson would later collaborate on the classic Dog Day Afternoon in 1975.

Connery plays the role of John “Duke” Anderson, a serial burglar who has just been released from prison and reunites with his girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon) who lives in a high-class apartment block in Manhattan. Far from being reformed, Duke decides he will target all of the flats in the block in one big heist with the help of his mafia connections and a crew of assorted criminals. Things have changed since he was put away and Duke must contend with the electronic surveillance throughout the building as well as various forms of snooping that are covering his entire crew. The film was one of several released at the start of the 1970s that dealt with the issue of surveillance, including the brilliant The Conversation.

This Japanese poster features artwork originally found on the US one sheet, although it appears to have been colour-tinted somewhat, particularly the masked men at the top. If anyone has any ideas who the artist is please get in touch.

Cotton Comes to Harlem is often considered to be one of the first films in the so-called blaxploitation sub-genre of exploitation that was popular during the 1970s. The film was the second film to be directed by the late Ossie Davis, who was one of a handful of African-American actors to achieve commercial success in films without being stereotyped in films prior to 1970. Although best known as an actor, with roles in films like The Hill (1965) and The Scalphunters (1968), Davis tried his hand at directing, starting with the little-seen Kongi’s Harvest in 1970. The same year, ‘Cotton…’ proved to be a huge hit and saw him helm two other blaxploitation pictures, with Black Girl following in 1972 and then another hit with Gordon’s War a year later.

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Chester Himes and is set in the eponymous neighbourhood of Manhattan. Two detectives, Grave Digger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge, who died tragically aged 43) and Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) are assigned to investigate the apparent armed robbery of $87000 during a public rally. The gathering was being led by Reverend Deke O’Malley (Calvin Lockhart) who is fundraising for a Back-to-Africa movement ship to be called Black Beauty. A gang of thieves wearing masks appear at the event and steal the money from an armoured truck before making off. A chase ensues and the titular bale of cotton falls from the getaway van. The detectives soon realise that the stolen money was apparently stashed inside the bale and the hunt is on after it disappears from the street. O’Malley must fend off the angry mob of locals looking for their money, as well as a jealous girlfriend (Judy Pace) and the partner who he was in cahoots with to stage the robbery.

The film was a huge hit in cinemas, grossing over $5 million on a $1 million budget and triggering a rush to produce films in a similar vein. Arguably the sub-genre’s most famous film, Shaft, would follow a year later. ‘Cotton…’ was given a sequel called Come Back, Charleston Blue in 1972, but the second film wasn’t met with as much critical or audience adulation.

This Japanese B2 is a photo montage but at least part of it is inspired by the US theatrical poster, which had been painted by the artist Robert McGinnis and can be seen here.

One of the all-time-great pieces of Blaxploitation artwork for this 1973 flick starring Max Julien and Richard Pryor. The film is notorious for the ‘player’s ball’ scene, which birthed the idea of an annual meet-up for pimps in Chicago, Illinois.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the great artwork so please get in touch or leave a comment if you have an idea.

Here’s the original trailer on YouTube.

This version of the Terminator one sheet is known as the Cleveland NSS variant as it was printed at the NSS office in Cleveland, Ohio and is the only version of the poster that measures 27″ x 41″. As is clear, this was achieved by adding white bars to the top and bottom of the original printing plate that had been designed for 27″ x 40″. It is definitely harder to find than the standard one sheet, but I’d argue that the regular version is more desirable since the white bars look quite odd.