White Line Fever was made during the heyday of trucking in American popular culture and tells the story of Vietnam veteran Carol Jo-Hummer (played by Jan-Michael Vincent) who returns from the war and takes over his father’s trucking business, only to run up against the corrupt shipping firm Red River who are a front for an organised crime gang. Kay Lenz stars as Carol’s sweetheart Jerri who awaited his return from Vietnam and eventually helps him take a stand against the gang.

It would later be followed by other trucking-based action films such as the Burt Reynolds mega hit Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy (1978). Director Jonathan Kaplan would go on to direct Jodie Foster to an Oscar win in 1988’s The Accused.

This style B US one sheet depicts a moment from one of the climactic scenes in the film and I’m unsure who is responsible for the artwork so please get in touch if you have any ideas.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

You only have to look through my poster archive to know that I love schlocky horror films as much as the next person, but I really struggled to make it through The Stuff when I rewatched it again recently. Sadly, that wasn’t because it was too gory or scary but because it’s such a terrible mess of a film, with clunky pacing, a complete lack of suspense and painfully bad acting across the board. Lead Michael Moriarty gives one of the strangest performances I’ve ever seen featuring baffling line deliveries and the general air of someone who thinks he’s acting in another film entirely.

The premise is okay with a mysterious white goo being discovered in the desert by a miner who then samples it, declares it to be tasty, and before long it’s the nation’s favourite dessert and is being marketed as an alternative to ice cream. The only downside is that it turns people into brain-washed zombies who infect anyone else they come into contact with. The leaders of several ice cream companies hire Mo Rutherford (Moriarty), a former FBI agent, to investigate what the secret of The Stuff really is.

I’m unsure who painted the artwork on this US one sheet so please get in touch if you have any ideas.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

A British action thriller directed by Peter Duffell, Inside Out sees the inimitable Telly Savalas star as conman Harry Morgan who teams up with James Mason and Robert Culp on the hunt for a stash of Nazi gold hidden since the end of the Second World War. Duffell is perhaps best known for his TV work, but he also directed the classic Amicus horror The House That Dripped Blood, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the artwork on this US one sheet so get in touch if you have an idea. You’ll notice that there is some foxing present on the bottom part of this particular copy.

Excellent artwork on this 30×40 poster for the 1974 entry into the blaxploitation genre, Black Samson. The film was directed by Charles Bail, who also had a career as an actor and starred in several TV series throughout the 1960s, including The Big Valley and Batman (as a henchman). He was also a prolific stuntman and stunt coordinator, lending his talents to such films as The Green Berets and Freebie and the Bean. This film was his directorial debut but he went on to work on another blaxploitation caper, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975) and the road race comedy The Gumball Rally (1976).

The plot follows nightclub owner Samson (the brilliantly named Rockne Tarkington), who keeps his neighbourhood clear of drugs and crime, face up against a mob gang led by Johnny Nappa (William Smith) who are trying to muscle in on his territory. Carol Speed (The Mack) stars as Samson’s love interest, alongside his pet lion and gigantic bashing stick!

I’m unsure who is responsible for the artwork on this poster so please get in touch if you have an idea.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

An unusual design on this poster for 11 Harrowhouse, a British heist thriller from 1974 that was helmed by Aram Avakian. The American director had gained notoriety for the ground-breaking indie film End of the Road (1970), which was given an X-rating for its graphic depiction of an abortion and other scenes considered shocking for the time. 11 Harrowhouse stars Charles Grodin as a diamond merchant who is blackmailed into pulling a heist at a London jewel-exchange known as The System, which is located at the titular address. Candice Bergen features as his girlfriend who joins him on the heist, along with various ingenious ‘tools’ that include the cockroach depicted on this poster.

The initials FMA can be seen on the right of the poster (see picture 8) but I’m unsure who they belong to. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch and I’ll add the credit.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

An excellent design on this 30×40 poster for the release of one the most prominent entries in the blaxploitation genre, 1973’s Cleopatra Jones. The late Tamara Dobson stars as the eponymous secret agent who masquerades as a catwalk model in order to disguise her real job, which sees her traveling the globe and tackling drug gangs. After burning down a Turkish poppy field used to create heroin by the kingpin Mommy (Shelley Winters), Cleopatra returns to Los Angeles to arrest the dirty cops on the cartel’s payroll. An incensed Mommy tracks our heroine back home and tries to prevent her dismantling the rest of her drug operation.

The film is notable for being the first in the genre to feature a strong female lead who uses physical strength and combat skills to battle adversaries, and because of its box-office success was later followed by films such as Coffy, Black Belt Jones and Foxy Brown. Dobson would return for the sequel Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, which was released two years later but saw nowhere near the same level of success, mostly due to the blaxploitation genre’s waning appeal at that time.

I’m unsure who is responsible for the design of this poster, or for the hand-drawn artwork featured on it, so if you have any ideas please get in touch.

The trailer is on YouTube.

Juggernaut was directed by Richard Lester, perhaps best known for his work with The Beatles on two of their early films (A Hard Days Night and Help!), and features an all-star cast in the style of other 1970s disaster movies such as Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (both released in the same year). The story sees a luxury cruise-liner targeted by the titular terrorist who has covertly planted barrels of high-explosive onboard and is making his ransom demands from a secret location on the mainland. Omar Sharif plays the captain of the ship who, along with the ship’s entertainer Roy Kinnear, attempt to keep the hundreds of passengers calm as a bomb squad led by Commander Fallon (Richard Harris) parachutes in to try and defuse the devices. Back on dry land Anthony Hopkins‘ police superintendent, whose wife and children are onboard the ship, leads the hunt for Juggernaut before the time runs out.

The production hired an actual cruise ship, the SS Hamburg, which had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Union and renamed the SS Maxim Gorkiy. The livery on the side of the ship was temporarily painted over and the ship renamed as the Britannica. Hundreds of extras were then hired with the promise of a cruise around the North Sea, although they were warned that the ship was likely to head into high seas to increase the drama of the film’s external shots!

The artwork on this 30×40 is by the late American artist Robert McCall who is perhaps best known for his work as a conceptual artist for the likes of NASA and several Hollywood productions, including Tora, Tora, Tora and Star Trek. Born in 1919 in Columbus, Ohio McCall graduated from the city’s School of Fine Arts before heading off to join the Airforce at the outbreak of World War II. Upon his return from service McCall carved out a successful career as a cover artist for publications such as Life Magazine, and before long he was painting for the U.S. Air Force. Around this time the artist also began a successful cooperation with NASA, which lasted for decades and saw him painting giant murals in buildings such as the National Air and Space Museum. In the 1960s McCall also began working with the entertainment industry as a concept artist. He sadly passed away, aged 90, in 2010.

Arguably his most famous film poster work is the set of illustrations he painted for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some of his NASA paintings can be seen on this website and many of his other sci-fi artworks can be viewed via this Tumblr link.

Brian De Palma‘s mesmerising Carrie still stands up today as a perfectly paced thriller and a powerful portrait of the torment suffered by a social outcast on the receiving end of a bullying campaign. Sissy Spacek delivers a breakout performance as Carrie White, the teenager who is picked upon by her teachers, peers and her domineering, abusive mother Margaret (played brilliantly by Piper Laurie). What nobody knows is that Carrie has discovered that she has a latent telekinetic power that flares up when she’s upset or angry. The film also features memorable turns from several young actors who were relative unknowns at the time, including John Travolta, Nancy Allen and William Katt as Tommy.

The unforgettable prom night sequence that sees Carrie’s destructive powers fully unleashed was clearly seen as the marketing cornerstone for the film, as evidenced by the images and tagline used on this 30×40 poster. A still from the scene features on the brilliant Japanese B2. The striking image of Sissy Spacek drenched in blood is often used to promote the film and has been used for multiple DVD covers and other marketing materials. A remake is being readied for release in 2013 and the teaser poster depicts star Chloe Moretz in a similarly bloody state.

Wes Anderson‘s superb Moonrise Kingdom is my favourite film of 2012 and this American one sheet is in the running for poster of the year too. Arguably the director’s best to date (although I’d have a hard time justifying picking this over Rushmore) the film is set on a fictional New England island in the 1960s and follows the exploits of a pair of young lovers who decide to elope (her from home, him from scout camp) and trigger a series of events as the islanders set out on the hunt for them. The pair at the centre of the film (as depicted on this poster) are played by two unknowns, Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman. They are surrounded by Anderson regulars, including Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, as well as a handful of first-time collaborators like Bruce Willis and Edward Norton.

This poster is the result of a pairing of two considerable talents; the British artist Michael Gaskell and the American letterer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Gaskell, born in 1963, is an award-winning painter of still-life, landscapes and portraits who has been the subject of five solo shows in London and has twice been awarded second prize in the BP Portrait Award. His official website features a biography as well as a gallery of his work. I’m not sure how his involvement in this poster came about and have been unable to find out any details online. I intend to try and contact him to discover more.

Jessica Hische is responsible for the design of the typography that was used on the posters as well as the credits during the film itself. Hische is a multi-talented letterer and illustrator who has worked on projects for advertising, editorial, branding and books. Her official website features a biography as well as an extensive portfolio of her work. The site used to have a page on which the designer wrote about her involvement in the project:

“I worked directly with Wes and his small team of co-producers to bring his vision to life. […] The initial direction was based on Ed Benguiat’s Edwardian Script, but the direction shifted toward something more hand-hewn looking and lightly referencing titles from a Chabrol film. I was hired to create the 20 or so credits in the beginning of the movie, and a typeface to be used for the end credits. I ended up creating two fonts—a display and a text weight of the same typeface. […] Working with Wes was an absolute dream and I was amazed and impressed at just how involved he is with every aspect of his films.”

The page notes that art direction was given from Jeremy Dawson and Molly Cooper who were producer and co-producer respectively.

The trailer for the film is on YouTube and if you’re yet to see the film I strongly urge you to hunt down a copy of it ASAP, with the only caveat being that if you’re not a fan of Wes Anderson’s output then this film will not convert you!

An excellent, stylised portrait of legendary actor Charles Bronson and the gorgeous English actress Jacqueline Bisset on this 30×40 for the US release of St Ives. Bronson stars as Raymond St. Ives, a former crime reporter and struggling author who is hired by a wealthy eccentric named Abner Procane (John Houseman) to help him secure the return of some important ledgers that were stolen from his mansion. After several unsuccessful attempts to recover them, he eventually gets his hands on the documents but then discovers that a few important pages are missing. He must then team up with Procane and his femme-fatale protege, Janet Whistler (Bisset), to track down the missing pages and St. Ives winds up caught up in a criminal plot that he didn’t see coming.

The film was the first of eight subsequent collaborations between British director J. Lee Thompson and Bronson, which included the likes of The White Buffalo (1977) and 10 to Midnight (1983).

‘Underwater’ is simply but effectively conveyed using a single block of colour on this American one sheet for Richard Ayoade’s excellent British indie film, Submarine. It was the debut directorial effort from Ayoade, who was best known for his appearances on multiple British TV comedy shows, including The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd. The film is a coming-of-age comedy-drama featuring breakout performances by its two young leads, Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige. Roberts plays Oliver Tate, a precocious and neurotic teenager who struggles to cope with life at home and school but when the sultry Jordana takes interest in him (initially as an act of revenge against another boy) Oliver’s world is turned upside down.

Not only must Oliver deal with swirling feelings of romance, excitement and anguish but his parents (played by Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor) are also struggling with their relationship, particularly when one of his mother’s old flames, a brilliantly nutty new-age guru played by Paddy Considine, moves back in next door. The film wears its influences proudly on its sleeve and the cinema of the French New Wave clearly informed many Submarine’s quirkier scenes, whilst Oliver’s neurosis calls to mind vintage Woody Allen. The film is set in Swansea and Ayoade and his cinematographer Erik Wilson make excellent use of locations, whilst the soundtrack is absolutely perfect and features several tracks from Arctic Monkeys’ frontman Alex Turner. If you’re yet to see the film I highly recommend tracking it down.

I’m unsure who is responsible for this poster and if you look at the closeups you’ll notice that the image of Oliver appears to have actually been illustrated. I had assumed it was simply a photograph but if anyone knows anything more about who put this together I’d appreciate it if you’d get in touch.

The trailer is on YouTube.

A great image on this American one sheet for John Carpenter‘s excellent sci-fi film They Live, in which a drifter (played by former wrestler Roddy Piper) finds a set of special sunglasses which reveal that aliens have taken over the earth and are subduing the general population through subliminal messages and signals. The film is famous for being the inspiration behind graphic designer Shephard Fairey‘s famous OBEY street art and clothing label, which is based on the hidden alien slogans only visible when the sunglasses are worn.

The film also features the infamous line “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum.”, which can be viewed here. There’s also the legendary fight between Nada (Piper) and Armitage (Keith David) that lasts over five minutes and was apparently proposed and choreographed by the two actors themselves.

Here’s the great original trailer.

To see the other John Carpenter posters I have collected click here.

Shaft’s Big Score is the second in the trilogy of films featuring Blaxploitation hero Shaft (Richard Roundtree) which sees the private-eye caught up in a war between two rival mobs after the death of one of his friends. The murder leaves the two gangs chasing a missing $200,000 and battling to take over a neighbourhood with Shaft battling to stop them. The film was directed by Gordon Parks who was also responsible for the first film and would later direct another blaxploitation caper, The Super Cops (1974). Although singer Isaac Hayes had provided the score for the first Shaft film, he wasn’t available for this sequel and Parks decided to work on the score himself since he was also a composer.

The all-action artwork on this 30×40 poster is by the American artist John Solie who has been working as an illustrator for over 40 years. Film posters are just one aspect of his output, which also includes book and magazine covers, sculptures, portraits and work for NASA. He continues to paint today in Tucson, Arizona. Another gallery of his work can be viewed on Wrong Side of the Art.

Here are the posters by John Solie I have collected to date.

You can view the trailer on YouTube.

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.

The late Tamara Dobson‘s second and last outing as the titular blaxploitation crime-fighter sees her traveling to Hong Kong to rescue two of her fellow agents who have disappeared whilst on a case. She soon discovers that the owner of a Macao casino and major drug lord, the sinister Dragon Lady (Stella Stevens), is responsible and Cleopatra sets out to stop her at all costs.

Apparently the film failed to make as much of an impact as the first one due to the fall in popularity of blaxploitation films by 1975. Director Charles Bail had previously worked on another entry in the genre, Black Samson, released in 1974. He went on to direct episodes of several TV series including CHiPs, Knight Rider and Dragnet.

The excellent artwork is by the American artist Robert Tanenbaum who was responsible for many excellent film posters during the 1970s and 80s. He’s also an award-winning portrait artist and his official website features several galleries of his impressive work. IMPAwards also features a number of his film posters.

To see other posters I’ve collected by him click here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

A striking design on this poster for the 1974 blaxploitation crime caper Black Eye, starring genre favourite Fred Williamson as Stone, a Los Angeles private-eye. Following a film star’s funeral, a signature cane is stolen from their house and Stone discovers that the item is connected to a string of grisly murders. His investigation sees him visiting an adult movie set, as well as getting involved with a drug ring and a religious cult, all the time dealing with the machinations of his bisexual girlfriend (played by Teresa Graves).

The film was directed by Jack Arnold who is best known for helming a series of iconic horror and sci-fi films during the 1950s, including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), It Came from Outer Space (1953) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).

A couple of original TV spots for the film are available to watch on YouTube.

Peter Fonda and Warren Oates are pursued across Texas by a satanist cult who they witness apparently murdering a woman in a sacrificial ritual in Race with the Devil. Following on from the 1974 hit Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, in which Fonda played a bumbling criminal being hunted by a relentless police force, this film was a mix of the popular car chase genre (Vanishing Point, Gone in 60 Seconds etc) and Hollywood’s interest in films of an occult nature that was burgeoning following the success of The Exorcist (1973). Fonda and Oates play friends who head off on a vacation in an RV with their wives, but when the group pull off the main road and find a remote spot to camp for the night they unwittingly do so near an occult shrine at which the aforementioned sacrifice happens.

When the group are spotted by the cult their RV is attacked by masked men before they manage to escape to a nearby town. The local sheriff calms the group down and drives the men out to the spot where they witnessed the ritual,  only to discover that the cult have removed (almost) all evidence of their deed. The group decide to carry on with their holiday but it soon becomes clear that the satanists aren’t about to give up their pursuit and that not everyone they meet along the way is who they appear to be. The film has the requisite tension to make it an enjoyable watch and features several well staged car chase scenes, with some very impressive stunt work. The film also features a classic freeze-frame shot at the end.

This US 30×40 boasts excellent explosive artwork and I’ve been frustrated in my attempts to identify the artist, but I suspect it could be the work of John Solie. The American artist usually signs his artwork and this poster features no such signature, but the artwork is certainly rendered in a similar style to his. I intend to contact the artist to see if this poster can be attributed to him. Unusually the artwork itself is actually copyrighted by the studio (see picture 17).

Cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli wrote and directed this 1982 sword and sorcery flick starring Marc Singer as the titular prince and the gorgeous Tanya Roberts as Kiri, his love interest. Dar (Singer) is the son of King Zed (Rod Loomis) who, in a bizarre sequence, is stolen from his mother’s womb and placed inside the belly of an ox on the orders of evil priest Maax (Rip Torn). When born the prince is gifted with the ability to telepathically communicate with animals and after being adopted and raised by a lowly villager, Dar is trained to be a skilled swordsman. One day the village is attacked and burned by the rampaging Jun horde who are under the control of Maax, and the warrior sets on a quest for revenge with his animal friends, including an eagle, two ferrets(!) and a black panther.

According to the IMDb trivia page for the film, the black panther was actually a tiger with its fur dyed and whenever the animal took a drink the dye would wash off around its mouth, which is noticeable in several scenes. Also, rather brilliantly, the eagle often refused to fly on cue so in order to shoot footage of it in the air it was dropped from a trapdoor in a hot air balloon.

The artwork on this US one sheet is by an American artist called C. Winston Taylor, about whom very little can be found online. The Lost Video Archive blog has a post on the artist that features images of some of his other posters and video covers. In the 1990s the artist was hired to paint the covers for a Quantum Leap comic book series and a gallery of those images can be viewed on this site, which also features three images of the artist himself. Comicbookdb.com features a small profile of Taylor with the following mini-biography:

C. Winston Taylor always knew from a young age that he would communicate through his drawings. Fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, where he earned two Bronze Stars, helped solidify this vision. After graduating with honors from the Art Center College of Design, in Los Angeles, he quickly became a well-respected illustrator. His work has received numerous awards and he served as the president of The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles. 

The other posters I’ve collected with artwork by him can be seen by clicking here.

This is the US 30×40 poster for the release of Wattstax, the documentary dubbed ‘the African American Woodstock’ that was put together by Mel Stuart, a prolific director and producer who is perhaps best known for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). The concert was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots that had seen the worst social unrest in the city’s history. It was organised by Memphis’ Stax Records (hence the name) and featured performances from many of the top black artists of the time, including Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Rufus Thomas and Kim Weston.

Mel Stuart was reportedly unhappy with the quality of a lot of the concert footage and decided to intersperse the music with interviews and stand-up footage of the likes of Richard Pryor, Ted Lange and other African American comedians and actors who spoke about their experience of being black in America at the time.

The concert ends with Isaac Hayes performing the hit music he recorded for the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft, the poster of which is clearly referenced with the title treatment on this one for Wattstax.

This is the original program for the release of Woodstock, a documentary of the music event of the same name that took place in August 1969 and is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of popular music. 400,000 revellers descended on farmland in a quiet part of New York State – several times the magnitude of people that the organisers were expecting – and despite local protests and plenty of logistical issues, 32 acts performed over the course of a long weekend. Many of the most popular musicians and groups of the era were present, including Grateful Dead, The Who, Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Famously Jimi Hendrix was the last act to play and, thanks to poor weather and other delays, he didn’t take to the stage until 8.30am on Monday morning by which time many of the concert-goers had already left the site. Despite this, Hendrix played an incredible two hour set featuring a psychedelic performance of The Star Spangles banner that has since become a defining sound of the 1960s zeitgeist.

The event was released a year later into cinemas as a three-hour documentary that was a huge commercial and critical success. It was directed by Michael Wadleigh whose only other director credit is for the 1981 werewolf horror Wolfen, and edited by several people including Martin Scorsese and his regular collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker. The film would go on to win Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards.

This program, featuring some superb photographs and illustrations, would have been given out to film premiere attendees, the press and other people involved in the marketing of the film. In the back of the program the designers are credited as Bert Cohen, William Gast, Ziegenfus and Vincent Cucinotta, and there are a number of photographers who are also credited (I’ve listed them under ‘artists’).

This is one of those items that I wish you could see in person as a lot of care and attention has been put into the printing of it, with superb use of thick, often patterned paper. It surely ranks up there as one of the best film programs ever printed.

A creepy slice of horror from Tobe Hooper, the man responsible for the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre (as noted on this poster), The Funhouse features a menacing atmosphere helped by great production design, solid performances from a number of character actors and a genuinely ghoulish killer. The story sees a quartet of teenage friends; Amy (Elizabeth Berridge), her boyfriend Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), her best friend Liz (Largo Woodruff) and Liz’s boyfriend Richie (Miles Chapin), visit a traveling carnival where they smoke marijuana, sneak into an over-21 strip show and interact with the carnies who run the shows. Richie dares the group to spend the night in the The Funhouse, an indoor ride on rails (often called a ghost train in the UK), and the girls reluctantly agree to hide until the park clears of people.

After sneaking into the depths of the ride the group inadvertently witness the mute, mask-wearing ride operator murder Madame Zena (Sylvia Miles), the fortune teller who also moonlights as a prostitute. When the ride’s barker Conrad (Kevin Conway) discovers what has happened it is revealed that he is the father of the murderous ride operator, actually called Gunther, and when Conrad admonishes him he knocks the mask off revealing a hideous freak underneath. Conrad realises that the crime has been witnessed by the kids and he unleashes Gunther to track them down. The rest of the film sees the teenagers trying to outwit the murderous carnies and escape The Funhouse alive. The make-up for Gunther is incredibly effective and he surely ranks up their as one of the best horror movie bad guys.

This US one sheet features the jaw of Gunther and is supposed to be something of a parody of the classic one sheet for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (the bright red lips). I’m not certain whether it’s actually painted or is a photographic image, although there has definitely been some additional touch-up work if it’s the latter. If anyone knows for sure please get in touch.

A striking design on this poster for the US release of Brian De Palma’s The Fury, the movie that followed his horror classic Carrie (1976). The director continued the theme of telekinesis that he’d started with Sissy Spacek’s teenager pushed over the edge, and in this picture there are two young telekinetics who start the picture unsure why they’ve been granted this strange power and who are unable to control it. The film opens with Kirk Douglas‘ Peter Sandza, an agent for an ‘organisation you didn’t even know exists’, and his son Robin relaxing on a beach in the Middle East with Sandza’s colleague Ben Childress (played by John Cassavetes). Suddenly the peace is shattered with an attack by terrorists who rush the crowded beach and attempt to shoot Peter who manages to fight several of them off before being seemingly killed in an explosion. The audience soon discover that Childress has double-crossed his friend in order to kidnap Robin and investigate his apparent telekinesis for shadowy means. Peter survives the explosion and realises what his friend has done, almost killing him with gunfire, but Childress escapes with Robin.

Fast forward a few years and we learn that Peter has been obsessively searching for his son whilst being pursued by the shadowy agency intent on killing him. At the same time, teenager Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving, a Carrie alumni) is struggling to understand the powers she’s been gifted with and, after a few incidents involving other pupils at her school, her mother decides to put her into a special institution that has been set up to deal with those with psychic potential. The viewer discovers that the place is actually funded by Childress and his nefarious organisation but, unbeknownst to them, Peter has a mole inside the school and is hoping that Gillian will be able to help find the whereabouts of his son. After Gillian makes a connection with Robin, Peter and his compatriot stage a breakout and set off to try and rescue Robin, but it may already be too late…

The Fury is definitely one of De Palma’s better efforts, even if it’s not up there with Carrie. It features several exciting sequences, including the initial faked terrorist attack, and at least one trademark bravura slow-motion sequence that’s impeccably executed. Both Douglas and Cassavetes are excellent and Amy Irving also puts in a decent performance. The special effects mostly stand-up and it’s a thrill to see the full power of telekinesis being unleashed after having it teased at several points in Carrie (we see what happens if the power is directed at a single human body, pre-Scanners). I’m unsure who’s responsible for this poster so please get in touch if you have any ideas.

After John Carpenter’s original horror classic Halloween made over $70 million at the global box-office on a budget of $325k – earnings equivalent to $250 million adjusted for ticket price inflation – it was only a matter of time before a sequel was put into production. Carpenter passed on the chance to direct Halloween II, but offered to both produce and write the screenplay (and apparently even direct a few scenes) and the film was put into production with a significantly increased budget of $2.5 million. A relatively unknown director called Rick Rosenthal was offered the job and filming got underway with a targeted release date of Halloween 1981.

This is one of those sequels that picks up immediately after the events at the end of the previous film and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is being loaded into an ambulance having survived the attack by Michael Myers who was shot by Dr Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) before escaping into the night. We follow Myers as he stalks the neighbourhood, murdering an unlucky teenager as he searches for the whereabouts of Laurie. Dr Loomis and the Haddonfield police desperately hunt the killer as the true extent of his actions in the previous film come to light. Meanwhile, Laurie arrives at the town’s hospital and soon falls into a catatonic state thanks to the shock of her ordeal. When Michael learns of her whereabouts after overhearing a news broadcast he heads towards the hospital and the carnage begins again.

Rosenthal is definitely no Carpenter but it’s still a strong horror film, which has several creepy moments despite upping the body count and leaning towards quick, gross-out murders rather than tense, drawn-out pursuit sequences. It’s interesting to see the aftermath of the events in the first film and the hospital makes for an excellent location for Myers to stalk his prey. At the time, the explosive ending seemed to draw a line under the story of Michael Myers and, infamously, Halloween III made no mention of him, but when that film was something of a box-office flop the producers of the next sequel brought the man in the mask back from the dead.

Another of Disney’s forays into live-action filmmaking (this was actually the studio’s second PG-rated film after 1979’s The Black Hole), The Watcher in the Woods is an eerie mystery thriller that absolutely terrified me when I first watched it as a child in the 1980s. An Anglo-American co-production, the film was helmed by John Hough and English director who had proved his horror chops with the adults-only The Legend of Hell House (1973) and was chosen by the American producer Ron Miller to work on this film. Legendary Hollywood actress Bette Davis was lined up to star and the year of production coincided with her 50th in the business.

The story sees an Anglo-American family move to a manor house surrounded by thick woodland that is owned by Mrs. Aylwood (Davis). One of the daughters, Jan (played by Lynn-Holly Johnson, the real-life figure-skater who would appear in For Your Eyes Only soon after), is told she bears a striking resemblance to Mrs Aylwood’s daughter Karen who went missing 30 years earlier. Jan begins to see strange apparitions in the forest and suffers a series of unexplainable phenomena. After discovering an abandoned church in the middle of the woods, Jan finds that there’s more to Karen’s disappearance than she’s been told and it’s not long before the secret behind the ‘Watcher’ is revealed.

This American one sheet bears the signature of an artist called David J. Negrón whose official website is here and describes him as an American impressionist. Negrón was born in Texas in 1935 and later graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, which allowed him to get a job at Twentieth Century Fox as a storyboard artist and production illustrator. He went on to work on films such as Hello Dolly, Raider’s Of The Lost Ark, Dog Day Afternoon, Back to The Future III, Jurassic Park and others. His website features a gallery of examples of his movie work and includes a great image of King Kong painted for Dino De Laurentiis’ 1976 version.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

A true cult horror classic, Re-Animator was based on H. P. Lovecraft‘s 1922 short story ‘Herbert West–Reanimator‘ and was director Stuart Gordon‘s first feature film. Originally planned to be a TV series set around the beginning of the 20th century, a pilot and a number of episodes were scripted by Dennis Paoli and William Norris. Eventually the trio decided to update the story to present day Chicago since the period setting was increasing production costs, and were then persuaded to make it as a feature film after Gordon was introduced to producer Brian Yuzna. The infamous horror director/producer Charles Band‘s Empire Pictures agreed to help with post-production in return for distribution rights (note the logo on this poster).

One of the reasons for the films cult success was the hiring of Jeffrey Combs to play the lead role of scientist Herbert West, which led to one of horror’s all-time great performances. Coombs’  portrayal of West is pitch-perfect, blackly comic and the film is unquestionably elevated by his presence. At the beginning of the film West’s medical student is dismissed from a Swiss University after a failed experiment to bring his dead professor back to life using a concoction he has been developing for several months.Some time later, West arrives at a New England university and immediately carries on his experiments, enlisting the help of his room mate Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). When Dan’s girlfriend Megan grows suspicious of their activity, a series of events see the body count rising and West is able to test his new serum and ‘defeat death’.

The film has brilliant, gore-heavy special effects that stand up well nearly thirty years on and it’s a perfectly paced horror that was, unusually for the time, lauded by most critics. It went on to spawn sequels and launched Gordon’s career as a horror director of note.

This is the photo style one sheet and features one of the all-time great horror tag-lines. There is also an illustration style one sheet that can be seen here.