Editorials
Best & Worst of 2009: The Year’s Worst One Sheets
Before any footage from a film is seen, typically a teaser or full one sheet is released by a studio. This is an incredibly important, even detrimental process as it is the first thing the consumers will see and identify with a movie. If the poster stinks, the consumer might write it off all together, while a good poster could lead to them checking out the official website, trailer and best case scenario, hanging it from their wall (the most personal relationship any of us have with a movie). To say the least, posters are damn important. As part of our year end coverage, we present to you the year’s worst theatrical posters.
WORST ONE SHEETS OF 2009
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Posters listed in no particular order
In THE FINAL DESTINATION glass breaks and there’s a skeleton? The poster says absolutely nothing about the film to those who have never heard of the FINAL DESTINATION franchise. The worst part? It doesn’t even say it’s in 3-D!
A ridiculous knock-off of THE RING posters from earlier this decade that says nothing about the film. In fact, it’s incredibly misleading. Apparently there’s a malevolent spirit ready to invade? Nope.
While one of Universal’s one sheets for THE WOLFMAN featured the beast in a remarkable way, the other is quite unflattering. What you’ll see is a shoddy FX shot that features The Wolfman? Not sure WHAT that is, but he’s ugly.
Hi, I’m a house. Bad stuff happens here. Doesn’t this excite you?
While the other SAW posters were brilliant, I am still confounded by this one. Fist gloves that are transparent somehow tease the brilliance of Jigsaw? I still don’t get it.
Floating heads went out in the 90’s, unless of course you’re a superstar. Steve Zahn is not. Milla Jovovich is not. Timothy Olyphant is not. Kiele Sanchez is not. Don’t get me wrong, I love all four, but none of them are star power.
Again, star power, no one knows who the f*ck Kate Beckinsale is, nor do they give a sh*t. So how is having a poster with her giant mug rendered to not even look like her going to fill seats in a theater. I hate this poster and want to punch it straight in the kisser.
Summit Entertainment’s SORORITY ROW campaign was weak sauce, straight down to every single poster released. If people want to be sold SCREAM, they’d go rent it on DVD. And what the heck was going on with that Theta Pi Must Die teaser? Not a single person walking down a theater lobby would know what the heck that was, or care.
Sure, our name is plastered all over this sucker, but I still think it’s an ugly poster. The wording is actually pretty effective (Don’t See It Alone), but nonetheless it hurts my eyes starring at it, especially the “Demand It” button (it’s like real-life internet!).
What a lazy, lazy poster that assumes people will go to a theater to see James Marsden, Frank Langella and Cameron Diaz. I’m sorry but Diaz is finished. I don’t really understand why Warner Bros. didn’t release a one sheet featuring a big old box and a stack of money? Isn’t that what we’re going to go see? Ugh.
Come on guys, I know you want to see a movie with the tagline “College kids, the other white meat,” especially when it stars rock hard abs. This one sheet screams comedy; he’s going to Romania to play basketball! Get it, Get it! HAHAHAHAH, wait, neither do I.
Overture Films’ teaser poster for THE CRAZIES was pretty solid as the striking image was an attention grabber, especially to Romero fans, but this little fella is just plain painful. When I was in Chicago my dad walked by the poster in a theater and said to me, “What’s HELP US about?” No joke.
CHECK OUT THE BEST ONE SHEETS OF 2009
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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