Unique artwork on this poster for the Japanese release of French director Luc Besson‘s classic ‘hitman with a heart’ film, Leon (AKA The Professional in the US). The film reunited Besson with his  regular collaborator Jean Reno (he was one of the leads in Besson’s The Big Blue, amongst other roles), who’s superb as the titular assassin wrestling with his strict code of ethics after he witnesses the massacre of a family that leaves one survivor, a twelve-year-old girl called Mathilda (Natalie Portman in a breakout role). The perpetrator is the psychotic, corrupt policeman Stansfield, played brilliantly by Gary Oldman, and Leon decides to take Mathilda under his wing to protect her, but Mathilda wants revenge and Stansfield will stop at nothing to track down the witness to his heinous crime.

This Japanese B2 actually features a still from the director’s cut of the film. Japan was one of the only countries in the world (including France) to see a theatrical release of the so-called ‘Version Integrale’, or International cut, of the film that adds 26 minutes of extra footage – the poster for that release can be seen here. I also have the UK quad and the American one sheet.

A wild design on this one sheet for the 1981 horror featuring a trio of demonic kids. From IMDb:

In 1970, three children are born at the height of a total eclipse. Due to the sun and moon blocking Saturn, which controls emotions, they have become heartless killers ten years later, and are able to escape detection because of their youthful and innocent facades. A boy and his teenage sister become endangered when they stumble onto the bloody truth.

Director Ed Hunt would retire from filmmaking a few years after Bloody Birthday was released with a modest ten films to his name.

I also have the alternative style one sheet in the collection. You can watch the trailer on YouTube.

This is the Thai poster for the release of Sam Raimi’s brilliant low-budget horror The Evil Dead, which made an instant cult icon of lead actor (and friend of Raimi) Bruce Campbell who plays Ash, one of five friends who travel to a small cabin in the woods on vacation. The group discover a gnarled old book in the basement that turns out to be a Sumerian version of the Book of the Dead. Along with it are tapes containing translation of the text and when these are played demons are summoned in the woods. The house is subjected to a sustained attack and one by one the friends are possessed, turning into ‘deadites’ and leaving just Ash to survive the night and the forces of the evil dead.

Both this film and its 1987 sequel were big hits in the UK after the first was bought at the Cannes Film Festival by the legendary British distribution (and later production) company Palace Pictures. Released in cinemas and on VHS almost simultaneously the modest outlay for the rights to distribute the film proved to be an excellent deal as it went on to see great box-office takings and thousands of tapes sold. The Evil Dead was eventually caught up in the infamous video nasties debacle of the 1980s and was banned for a number of years under the Video Recordings Act.

The sequel, made six years later and technically a retcon sequel, was allotted a significantly larger budget than the first and is more of a black comedy than the original. Ash is put through a continually escalating series of horrific encounters that allow him to show the full extent of his talent for slapstick comedy.

This Thai poster featuring a montage of scenes from the film was painted by a Thai artist called Noppadol about whom I’ve been unable to discover very little, other than a few of the other film poster titles he worked on (including Saturn 3 and The Beyond). If anyone knows any more details please get in touch.

This US one sheet was printed to mark the 1996 re-release of a restored print of director Alfred Hitchcock‘s classic thriller Vertigo. The film marked the first time Hitchcock worked with the celebrated American designer Saul Bass and the pair would collaborate on two further films together. Hitchcock had himself started his film career developing inter-title cards for silent movies and he commissioned Bass to create the title sequences for Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho. As detailed in the must-own book ‘Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design’ (designed by Bass’ daughter Jennifer), the director knew of Bass’ work well before the commission as he kept a close eye on movie graphics and was a subscriber to Graphis, a print journal that had featured Saul’s work.

As well as creating the influential title sequences for each film, Bass was also commissioned to design the advertising campaign for Vertigo. He created the central motif of two figures swirling in a vortex, which is detailed in ‘A Life in Film & Design’:

‘The main poster also captures the sensation of vertigo by having a couple sucked into a vortex. The slightly off-kilter, irregular capitals further hint at the vertiginous. The figures were drawn by Art Goodman, who recalled Saul specifying and sketching out a black silhouette for the man and a light outline, like an apparition, for the woman of his obsessions.’

Several different colours and variations were utilised for the various elements of the ad campaign (trade ads, large posters, brochures, etc) with the concept that the variation of colour and design around a central theme ‘was spinning the viewer in another direction’. Some of these alternatives can be seen in this excellent blog post.

Even if the film wasn’t a great box-office and critical triumph during its initial release, with a reappraisal and celebration not happening until several years later, the title sequence advertising campaign was declared an immediate success and was to win Bass several awards. This one sheet is practically identical to the original 1958 poster with the exception of an altered credits block at the bottom and slightly darker shade of orange (note that this poster is also double-sided, for use in lightboxes)

The film’s Wikipedia article details how the 1996 restoration proved quite controversial since the experts charged with the task were forced to alter the soundtrack (during the creation of a new 6 channel track) and restore the colour as best as they could since the original negatives had faded over the years.

This article on Mubi.com by Adrian Curry does a thorough job of detailing all the various posters printed for Vertigo around the world.

For more on Bass I thoroughly recommend picking up ‘Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design’ and also check out the extensive page about him on the brilliant Art of the Title

Gruesome artwork for this one sheet for Bloody Birthday, an early 80s horror featuring a trio of demonic kids. From IMDb:

In 1970, three children are born at the height of a total eclipse. Due to the sun and moon blocking Saturn, which controls emotions, they have become heartless killers ten years later, and are able to escape detection because of their youthful and innocent facades. A boy and his teenage sister become endangered when they stumble onto the bloody truth.

You can watch the trailer on YouTube.

A minor sci-fi classic, The Last Starfighter is one of those perennial favourites that seemed to be on TV every month and, along with films like Flight of the Navigator and The Goonies, became a cult favourite for children of the 1980s. The film’s plot is fairly straightforward; Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) is a frustrated teenager who dreams of leaving his small American town to study at university, despite the protestations of his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart). One day he beats the high score of an arcade game called Starfighter that is secretly a recruiting tool for the Star League, a team of space pilots who are battling against an overwhelming force threatening the entire galaxy. When an alien recruiter arrives and takes Alex to the headquarters of the defence force, the teenager is at first reluctant to join the war, but when a surprise attack from the enemy force destroys most of the command centre and the other starfighters, Alex decides to step up to the challenge.

Ably directed by Nick Castle, a friend and former classmate (at USC) of John Carpenter – Nick actually played the part of Michael Myers in Halloween – the film has a sweet story filled with memorable characters, such as the late, great character actor Robert Preston as the alien benefactor who recruits Alex and Dan O’Herlihy as Grig, his alien co-pilot (as seen to the right of Alex on this poster). The film is perhaps most notable for being a milestone of technical achievement for its pioneering use of CGI to depict most of the scenes involving space battles, or ‘digital scene simulation’ as it’s (unusually) credited as on the bottom of this poster.

A company called Digital Productions was hired to work on these sequences and, as detailed in the excellent making-of documentary found on the blu-ray of the film, the artists and technicians were pushing the boundaries of what was possible with the available hardware – a giant supercomputer called Cray – on a daily basis. It was the first time that CGI was used to depict scenes in a film that weren’t explicitly part of a computer simulation (like Tron, for example) and the team had to battle against time and a plentiful supply of naysayers who were trying to push Castle and the producers to use the more traditional model work seen in other films of the period. The director stood his ground and the results speak for themselves. Viewed now it’s clear how far the technology has come, but audiences must have been thrilled back in 1984 and some of the sequences still look pretty decent even today.

This Japanese poster features a montage of images from the film, including some of Alex’s fellow starfighters, although fans of the film will notice that the designer of the poster has taken some liberties by placing a starfighter helmet on the head of one of the main bad guys (the brown-faced alien with the eye glass). I’m assuming it had something to do with making the design more symmetrical, unless there’s a deleted scene that I’m unaware of!

The debut film from writer-director Richard Kelly, Donnie Darko is a thought-provoking and genre-defying classic that has gained a strong cult-following since its release in 2001. Trying to describe the plot of the film is no easy task since it combines a coming-of-age teen storyline with a mind-bending alternate-reality/time-travel plot. The titular character is played by Jake Gyllenhaal who was only 21 at the time of release and the film was instrumental in catapulting him to stardom. Also appearing was Jake’s older sister Maggie Gyllenhaal who saw a similar boost to her already established career. In addition, the film had attracted a number of respected actors including Katharine Ross, Mary McDonnell and the late Patrick Swayze, playing against type as a self-help guru with a dark secret.

Despite critical adulation (and a low-budget), Donnie Darko failed to break-even at the box-office due to a botched release in American cinemas in October 2001, not helped by the terrible tragedy that unfolded only a month before. The subsequent international release was delayed for over a year. The film’s success was cemented by its release on DVD following word of mouth raves from fans that saw the film’s details and meanings endlessly discussed online, and the 2004 release of a director’s cut also helped to spread the cult of Darko.

This excellent American one sheet features a montage of characters and scenes from the film that together form the head of the ‘evil rabbit’ Halloween costume worn by Frank (James Duval) one of the film’s integral characters. It was designed by the Los Angeles-based design agency KO Creative that was apparently formed only a year before this film’s release. They designed a couple of one sheets for the film, including this one (IMPAwards actually features a slightly alternate version) and another poster that was apparently used for the film’s release at the Sundance festival in early 2001.

One of the staple films of my 1980s childhood, D.A.R.Y.L. (Data-Analysing Robot Youth Lifeform) tells the story of a young boy (Barret Oliver) who is found wandering alone by an elderly couple and taken to an orphanage. After being adopted by foster parents Andy Richardson (Michael McKean) and Joyce (Mary Beth Hurt) it becomes clear that Daryl is no ordinary boy as he starts to display a series of uncanny skills, including a perfect talent for baseball and the ability to manipulate funds via ATMs.

It turns out that he’s actually a cyborg with the brain of a supercomputer having been implanted into the body of a 10-year-old boy. Daryl was able to escape from a top secret facility with the help of a scientist but the military are in hot pursuit having decided that the ‘project’ should be terminated. The film was directed by Australian Simon Wincer who would later achieve great success with the family film Free Willy.

This UK quad features artwork by the American artist David Jarvis, who is perhaps best known for his illustration on the US one sheet for Walter Hill’s The Warriors. Having completed a degree in illustration at the Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, Jarvis went on to work as a freelance illustrator producing over thirty designs for film posters, as well as record sleeves, magazine covers and more. He also worked as an artist for Disney studios on the films Mulan and Tarzan. The other posters I’ve collected by him can be seen here.

Note the hidden words in amongst the data display on the right hand side. The SR-71 Blackbird stealth plane in the bottom right of the poster plays a prominent role in an action sequence towards the end of the film.

An iconic image of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman features on this US one sheet for the release of the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis‘s novel American Psycho. Although Bale had been appearing in films since the 1980s, with his lead role as the young boy in Spielberg’s 1987 film Empire of the Sun a notable highlight, it was American Psycho that was a real breakout role and ultimately led to his casting as Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (and subsequent global megastar status).

The story focuses on Bateman, a wealthy young banking executive who works at his father’s financial firm on Wall Street and spends his time materially competing with co-workers and dining at expensive restaurants in order to keep up appearances with friends and his fiancee Evelyn. Bateman is also a psychopath who spends his evenings indulging in acts of violence and ill-advised liaisons with prostitutes. A series of events see him murdering a colleague and entering into a series of violent encounters that nearly lead to his apprehension, but is all as it seems?

Bale is notorious for his use of method acting and the portrayal of Bateman was given his full attention. Apparently ‘the actor spent months tanning himself and working out in order to achieve the look of Bateman’s perfectly sculpted body’. The actor recalls: “I started going swimming on Sundays, and here was me, with this white English body, emerging with a stripy arse; not such a good look.”

This one sheet was created by the American design agency Indika Entertainment Advertising, which was founded in 1994 by James Verdesoto and Vivek Mathur and is based in New York City. They work on print and web campaigns for films, TV shows and home entertainment and have won multiple awards for their work over the years. One of their most iconic posters is the teaser one sheet for Pulp Fiction. They also designed the teaser one sheet for American Psycho.