Well, folks, it’s a month before October, and you know what that means: horror season! Expect lots of boring horror movie posters this week – you know, creepy kids, blood spatter, haunted houses. But that’s not all. Of course we’ve got new Hobbit stuff, Peter Jackson probably keeps a journal about the color and texture of dump he took that morning. Partly because he’s just that self-indulgent these days, partly because New Zealand is just that boring.
I like to think that in this shot (of the Elven King/cult prophet Elrond Hubbard) Hugo Weaving is looking down at his script thinking, “Fuuuuuu…. I signed on for two more years of this sh*t? Christ, man, I’m not an elf that lives for 500 years, I’ve got some other stuff I’d like to do before I die.”
I caught the trailer for this a while back and thought it looked like sitting through a root canal, but no sooner had I finished writing something to that effect than I went on Facebook, and found my timeline clogged with half the girls I know screaming, “OMG, ANNA KARENINA, THIS WILL BE THE BEST MOVIE EVER!” Granted, I did attend a fancy grad school writing program that was 90 percent female, but I still imagine this illustrates some important feature of the gender divide. Costumes and longing are like tits and fire to chicks.
Oh man, Jude Law is eye-sexing you so hard right now. Those gloves are going to become a weapon, and this is going to turn into some rough trade, 50 Shades of Gray-type sh– oops, hold on. It looks like I’m being arrested by the literary police for accidentally comparing Tolstoy to Twilight fan fiction. My bad. See you guys in five to ten.
Serious question: How the hell do you get that thing on? It doesn’t look like something you can pull it over your head and it doesn’t seem to open in the front. Is there a zipper in the back? Do you have to get one of your fellow shaggy-headed Russian soldiers to help you zip it up? Seems inconvenient in the middle of battle.
Wow, this looks stupid. Wait, is that the guy from Will and Grace? Nevermind, this looks great. STOP TRYING TO REDECORATE MY HOUSE, ERIC MCCORMACK! UGH, GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT! I DON’T EVEN LIKE SHABBY CHIC!
Here’s the first of a couple new stills from Red Dawn. They totes know how to hold a rifle now, thanks to their extensive green beret training with the small town’s football team in the woods.
Poor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, he’s been in both Jonah Hex AND Fred Claus. It’s no wonder the guy walks around in body armor and fatigues, he probably has PTSD.
Here’s a first look at The Goblin King from The Hobbit, which actually comes from a tie-in children’s book. I don’t remember who the Goblin King is, but I imagine he’s probably a character whose three-page cameo in the book will become a 90-minute story arc in the three-part movie.
See, I warned you there would be horror posters. “Panic feeds on fear.” Hmm, okay. Is that supposed to be fear in the skull’s mouth? And the skull is “panic?” I don’t get it.
Well that‘s just about the laziest poster I’ve seen. I’ll give them this, though, at least they matched the pictures to the names. Sidenote: anyone else think Hugh Jackman looks strangely like David Koechner down there? WHAMMY!
“RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, IT’S MYSTERIOUS YOUTHS IN HOODIES!” -A horror film for grandmas. And George Zimmerman. (*dodges tomato*)
I had to look this up to see what the hell it was, and apparently it stars Cam Gigandet, Xzibit, and Eddie Kaye Thomas, so you can see why they wouldn’t want to put that on the poster. Oh, Eddie Kaye Thomas. Remember when all child actors in the 90s had three names? (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Zachary Ty Brian, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Taran Noah Smith, Tiffany Amber Thiessen…) You know who else always has three names? Assassins. I like to think giving child actors three names was foreshadowing for their inevitable killing sprees.
Oh neat, it’s a human centipede made of corpses trying to f*ck itself. Bring the whole family!
Only in the world of horror movies can “From the writers of Saw IV through VII” be considered a selling point.
I had to look this one up because I don’t speak dirty pig Latin (I kid, Brazilians and Portuguese, I kid), but it’s a poster for Deadfall. It looks completely generic, but RADICALLY DIAGONAL! Whoa, hold onto something, da Earff is tilted!
I actually looked up Olivia Wilde on IMDB to research this and discovered that the first line on her trivia page is: “Once won a pancake eating contest while in Australia.”
So if nothing else, Deadfall, I thank you for giving me that.
This looks like a poor man’s Avengers. “Okay, so you lack an eye, but what you lost in peripheral vision and depth perception, you’ve compensated a thousand times over with a savant-like knack for cordless-drillin’.”
HELP ME, DRILL MAN, I JUST GOT BACK FROM IKEA!
Babies in capes, dogs dressed as other animals, Asians in powdered wigs – yep, this has all my favorite things, so I’ll probably see it.
Do cool people still wear ripped jeans?
Coen Brothers screenplay + Alan Rickman staring at me? Okay, okay, I’m sold. Take a lesson, Gambit, once the winner crosses the finish line, he doesn’t keep running for a mile.
Hipster Colin Firth is like, “whatever, I don’t even want to be king. It’s like, what’s a ‘king’, anyway, you know?”
But will it tie up all the loose ends from Grave Encounters 1?
I don’t get it, is there a fence outside New York City behind an open field? Look at all that space! And that view! Do you have any idea how much that piece of real estate would be worth?!
I’m going to try to see this movie for $5.00. If the ticket taker questions me, I’ll be like, “What? I thought you people were supposed to do the same jobs for half the price.”
Adam Sandler does voice work in this, because I guess he finally found a way to work even less hard.
I like this poster. Look, I get it, graphic designers, you like diagonals. That’s fine. But notice how this one makes sense? It’s possible, it just takes an ounce of creativity.
So there’s one person, and his prison jump suit says “treatment or riot” on the back. Because those are the possible reactions to a plague, I guess? I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. That’s the old “lazy cartoonist” trick. You just draw a playpus and write “debt crisis” on it. “Oh, I see, the platypus is a metaphor for the debt crisis.”
I don’t think I could possible watch yet another goddamn show or movie about people singing, but that is a really cool poster. Would you call that art deco? Hmm, I’m not an art history major, I better ask this barista.
Cigar-chompin’ Hardy, Center-parted Pearce, and Fedora Oldman? Why haven’t I seen this yet again?
It takes a manly man to not look like a lesbian in a vest.
Remember what I said in that last slide? Consider my case rested.
The only thing I can think of is “M’YEAAAAHH SEE?!?” running through my mind at about 1000 decibels right now.
This might be a personal problem, but I absolutely can’t stand misspelled movie titles. No, I’m not going to watch your stupid movie just so I can find out why you’ve oh-so-cutesily spelled it “happyness.” Mispelling a word does not a cool inside joke make.
It seems like the focal point here is the “Pancho’s Market” sign. I hope that’s an important plot point. Anyway, so the plot is that five guys go to Mexico and they leave with four? Basided on a true story indeed. That’s happened almost every time I’ve been to Tijuana. In my experience, that fifth guy was probably just off puking somewhere. He’ll make it home with someone.
“CREEEEEEPY KIDS, OOOOOOOOH” -75% of horror movies. I’ll say this, though, for the undead, those girls sure have nicely-styled hair.
I’m not sure the fact that the characters’ name is “Orange” was worth devoting two thirds of the poster to, but if Adam Brody and Alia Shawkat are both in it, I don’t know how I can resist.
I would’ve gone the literal route with this, with just Colin Firth, chillin’ out in a pair of jogging shorts, drinkin’ a Bud. But I say that about everything.
Didn’t they already make this movie? And yet these always make money. It’s crazy, horror-movie fans are like meth addicts. In fact, I bet there’s a lot of crossover between those two groups.
[Posters via IMPA, except where otherwise noted]