Editorials
10 Wonderfully Simple Modern Horror Movie Posters!
Sometimes a simple image can be more effective than an intricate design. Last week saw the release of the teaser poster for Ridley Scott’s upcoming Prometheus sequel/Alien prequel Alien: Covenant and you sort of have to admire its simplicity. The straightforward image of the xenomorph’s head masked in shadow is certainly an imposing thing to see. It also lets you know immediately what kind of movie you’re in for (meaning: more Alien, less Prometheus). Do you need to see anything else in this poster? I think not. Many other recent horror movies have made the most of a simple image. Here are some of our favorites.
The Crazies
Breck Eisner’s underrated remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 film of the same name had a pretty great marketing team. The poster below was one of the first ones released to promote the remake and it’s quite disturbing. The welcome sign leading into the once peaceful town of Ogden Marsh has “Help Us” scratched into it with a bloody finger. It certainly inspires chills!
Tusk
A lot of people don’t like Kevin Smith’s Tusk (I’m not one of them) but this minimalist poster foreshadowing Justin Long’s character’s transformation into a walrus. It’s subtle and quite pretty.
Unfriended
Another movie that people seem to love to hate on, Unfriended is actually a lot more fun than it’s generic title would have you believe. Mediocre tagline aside, the simple visual of a suggested search result is clever and tells you everything you need to know without spoiling much of the plot.
Grace
Paul Solet’s Grace is one of the best horror films from the 2000s. It’s also criminally underseen. Starring Jordan Ladd (whatever happened to her?), the film tells the story of a pregnant woman whose baby dies in the womb after a car crash. She decides to carry the fetus to term and miraculously gives birth to a living baby. There’s only one catch, and it involves the bottle shown on the poster.
Saw II
The posters for the Saw sequels got creative with body parts, didn’t they? The poster for Saw II so creative is that, like so many other posters on this list, it tells you everything you need to know about the film. A) There will be blood. B) It’s the second one, as noted by the two decaying fingers. This is one of my personal favorite horror movie posters simply because listening to parents complain about it in a movie theater in 2005 was highly amusing.
Escape From Tomorrow
Randy Moore’s bizarre horror film (well, the story behind it it more bizarre than the movie itself) takes place in Disney Land, so what better way to market it than to show a certain cartoon mouse’s bloody glove? Do you hear that? That’s the sound of childhoods being ruined.
Hatchet 2
Do you need this poster to show you anything else? The fact that it doesn’t even feature the name of the Adam Green-directed sequel is a bold move, but it works. You know that anyone who saw this poster and wasn’t familiar with Hatchet went to Google Victor Crowley immediately afterward.
Black Christmas
As bad as the Black Christmas is, it does have it’s fans (our own Jess Hicks and John Squires are some of them). Before you start to get angry about how the trailer contained tons of footage that wasn’t in the actual movie though, think back to a time before the movie was released and we just had this simple poster to judge. A bloody Christmas ornament is all we had to go off of. It’s a sufficiently creepy image that makes for a great poster.
Hostel Part II
Infamously banned from movie theaters, the poster for Hostel: Part II is pretty self-explanatory. If you go see this movie, then you will see lots of gore. The film kept its promise.
Buried
You could argue that Buried is not a horror movie, but anyone with cleithrophobia would tell you otherwise. The poster for Rodrigo Cortés’s film pretty much shows the entire movie: Ryan Reynold’s in a coffin. That’s literally the whole movie. Job well done, marketing department!
And of course, here is that awesome Alien: Covenant poster.
What are some of your favorite simple horror movie posters? Let us know in the comments below!
Editorials
‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel
The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.
The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.
Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.
With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).
It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.
The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.
The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.
Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.
Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.
Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.
The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.
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