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[BEST & WORST '11] The Worst Posters of the Year!

Movies
Posted by EvanDickson on January 01, 2012 @ 7:16am | 0 Comments
Category: Movies / Editorials

Posters, when done right, are an art form. Sure, they’re advertisements, but they’re also such a great artistic challenge. Representing the identity of a movie – and getting people in the door – with a single image? That’s tough.

So tough, in fact, that it’s very rarely done properly anymore. And look, I know that studio mandates can wreck a poster (floating heads etc…) just as much as a bad artist can – but a wrecked poster is a wrecked poster.

Hit the jump to check out some truly awful posters (with one great one thrown in for contrast)!

Bad photoshop. Bad movie. Bland, waxy poster. Bland, waxy movie. Although when you look at it alongside the one-sheet for the original, it’s actually great for one thing – giving the perfect visual analogy for the disparate levels of quality between the two versions.

Seriously – the comparison does all the work for me!

To quote Mr. Disgusting – “ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah”. The worst thing about this poster is that it almost makes this movie seem like it’s some fun, cheap grindhouse type endeavor. It’s not. It’s stupid, flat and so so amazingly boring you won’t believe your eyes.

This one makes me kind of mad because it so shamelessly pulls at my heartstrings. Heartstrings that are firmly affixed to Carpenter’s 1982 film. Heartstrings affixed to a particular image from Carpenter’s 1982 film that ISN’T EVEN IN THIS HALF-ASSED PREQUEL. Manipulative. They say a picture says a thousand words? This one says “We’re out of ideas”. 250 times (don’t make me feel like Brandon Routh in Scott Pilgrim by asking me to explain).

See my comments on The Thing.

While the bad word of mouth and lack of press certainly did their fair share of damage, the marketing materials for Dream House certainly didn’t do their part to put asses in seats either. Such a bad tagline and such a bland poster. All it does is remind me of that Garden State sight gag without giving me any real incentive at all to go to this film. And it’s aesthetically unpleasant to boot.

If you have a decent brand name but a crappy new design/make-up job for your most famous character, what’s the best course of action? The opposite of what they did here. Don’t alienate people who are only going to see this thing for the brand/title by telling them right up front how stupid it looks!

More beholden to brand loyalty than creativity. Smart business, bad art. Boring poster.

Because the only thing that would make this a more ridiculous image for a one-sheet would be to illustrate it.