Editorials
The 10 Coolest, Creepiest, and Most Stunning Horror Movie Posters of 2021
Where movie trailers can capture an audience’s attention with a montage of scenes, a poster must do it with a single image. It needs to grab you immediately. When done well, a movie poster not only piques curiosity but there’s an excellent chance we’ll want it on our walls, too.
Whether the image matches the film or lives up to the potential teased is a different story. These particular movie posters were creative, enticing, and often breathtaking works of art.
Here are the ten best horror movie posters of 2021.
Old (Universal Pictures)
“A new trip from M. Night Shyamalan,” indeed. This single image tells you everything you need to know about the plot, which isn’t an easy task. With the gradual aging on one half of the figure’s body, it takes an otherwise scenic, relaxing beach picture and makes it unsettling.
The Spine of Night (RLJE Films)
It’s fitting that a sprawling, rotoscoped fantasy epic should get a poster that’s a work of art itself. The vibrant colors, ethereal art, and the Lucy Lawless-voiced witch at the center command your attention.
We Need to Do Something (IFC Films)
Sometimes it’s the most straightforward designs that intrigue us the most. One close-up shot of an eye exuding pure, visceral terror is all it takes to sign us up for whatever horrors lie in wait in We Need to Do Something. Washing it in horror’s favorite color, red, is another stroke of minimalistic genius.
Malignant (New Line Cinema)
This excellent piece of pulp art conveys everything you need to know about James Wan’s latest. It tells you to expect a heavily Giallo-inspired horror movie, and that identity could be a central clue to unlocking the movie’s wild murder mystery.
Army of the Dead (Netflix)
If you want a quick, easy way to catch someone’s eye, make your poster pop with bright, vibrant hues and Vegas-style flash. Then make it horror. Netflix’s Army of the Dead introduced a series of vivid posters unafraid to embrace the neon, and it worked like a charm.
Fear Street Trilogy (Netflix)
Apart, each poster in Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy captured the tone and imagery of their respective installments. But lining all three up together and seeing how they bleed into another?
Very, very cool.
Last Night in Soho (Focus)
Edgar Wright’s horror thriller follows a modern fashion design student traveling back in time to London’s Soho district during the Swinging Sixties. This poster captures that perfectly, both in style and in evoking the period era.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (New Line Cinema)
The original theatrical poster for The Devil Made Me Do It marketed the safe bet- Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, respectively). For their fourth appearance in the Conjuring universe, it seemed safe to assume they are why audiences keep coming back for more. We love this cinematic couple, but the theatrical poster doesn’t hold a candle to the IMAX poster, an eye-grabbing work of comic-style horror art.
PG: Psycho Goreman (RLJE Films)
This stunningly gory work of art by Brock Hofer perfectly captures the tone and madness of Steven Kostanski’s horror-comedy riff on sentai. So many intergalactic monsters and fleshy bits across the page, covering every inch.
Prisoners of a Ghostland (RLJE Films)
Sion Sono’s English-language debut is an East-meets-West dystopian journey into madness, but this stunning poster goes all-in on the East aesthetic. Nicolas Cage stands atop a collage of samurai, bones, and characters along the way. It’s weird cinema meets beautiful poetry, and we need this one on our walls.
Editorials
‘The Vampire Lestat’ Concert Event Launches New Season With The Ultimate Expression Of Fandom
There are thousands of passionate fans decked out in gothic chic and champing at the bit like feral creatures. They’re screaming for Lestat, a legendary vampire-turned-rock star, as if the entire crowd has been glamored into submission.
The entire experience is magic, but not because some supernatural thrall has been activated. What’s going on is even more special. It’s the power of the effusive fandom that’s been authentically assembled by AMC’s sublime Immortal Universe, namely Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, now, The Vampire Lestat.
The Vampire Lestat is far from the first Anne Rice adaptation, and it’s not as if there’s been a lack of erotic vampire material for audiences to sink their teeth into. On June 2nd, during a one-night-only spectacle, New York City’s prestigious Beacon Theatre shook from Sam Reid’s bravado performance and an audience full of adoring fans who had already memorized Lestat’s songs.
It’s clear that The Vampire Lestat just hits differently than its predecessors. It’s become more than just a TV series at this point, and this opulent display of ego, swagger, and pure sex is the perfect way to premiere the new season and give back to the fans who helped make Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat such a breakout success. It’s exactly the sort of hyperbolized hedonism that would make Lestat cackle.
For all intents and purposes, AMC has successfully created the illusion that this concert/premiere is just one of the many destinations on Lestat and his band’s 54-stop tour that is simultaneously playing out on this season of television. It’s such a sophisticated and thorough level of interactive fan engagement that the audience doesn’t just understand, but also manages to accentuate through its involvement.
It’s a level of seamless synergy that’s not unlike the give-and-take relationship of vampire and victim.
Before the concert started, “LeStans” were sitting in the Beacon and flipping through a fake Rolling Stone issue with Lestat emblazoned on the cover, complete with interviews with the undead frontman inside. Other fans were admiring the vinyl pressing of Lestat’s EP as they walked past a section of undead band merch. Fandom and fantasy blur together, and it all becomes this elaborate, immersive experience. Fan celebration, erotic gothic fantasy, and a lavish rock concert transform into one beautiful thing.
To this point, AMC Global Media’s Chief Content Officer and President of AMC Studios, Dan McDermott, introduced the event by reiterating to fans, “You are the heartbeat of the series.” That’s abundantly clear on nights like this as that heartbeat collectively pulses to this performance. In terms of how AMC engages with The Vampire Lestat’s fans, it’s as bold a reinvention as the season itself.
This intuitive gamble speaks to AMC’s creativity in this department and a fandom that is eager to seize such opportunities. It’s the same innovation that led to zombie walks for The Walking Dead and real-life Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant pop-ups from Breaking Bad. It’s a great way to pump up the audience for The Vampire Lestat and then maintain that enthusiasm for the whole season.
For most series, a rock ‘n’ roll concert just doesn’t make any sense as a promotional tool. The Vampire Lestat finds itself in a very unique position where it can deliver an excellent concert at an iconic theater, but also use it to showcase The Vampire Lestat’s music by Daniel Hart (who was shredding on stage alongside Reid and the rest of their band) and, more than anything, Sam Reid’s endless charisma.
The way in which Reid feeds off of the crowd’s energy, modulating his performance and giving different sections of the Beacon life, is a perfect distillation of the series’ thoughtful relationship with its audience and how it’s become such a breakout success for AMC. AMC Studios President Dan McDermott emphasized that the fans are the reason that the show is still here and why an event like this is even possible. It’s rare to see a series in which every single cog in the machine is so perfectly attuned to its fans. Reid’s fans already cheer whenever they see him, so why not translate that to a concert setting?
It’s clear in this season of television that Reid was born to be a rock star, but it’s surreal to see him effortlessly command the stage — and the audience — at every step of the concert. He recites Shakespeare monologues and bitches out Armand between songs, all while the audience screams in support. For the duration of this concert, Reid is Lestat, and he’s given thousands of fans a memory that’s as immortal as any vampire.
Now bring on the encore and get this show on the road!
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