Movies
Mondo’s 40th Anniversary ‘Alien’ Products Include One Hell of a Poster
This year’s “Alien Day” may have come and gone, but since it’s the 40th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s original classic, well, that basically just means that *every day* this year is “Alien Day”!
The 40th anniversary celebration continues this week with a batch of new Alien products from Mondo, including a killer new poster (with a variant) from Phantom City Creative.
Mondo announced today, “We are honored to celebrate Ridley Scott’s horror/science-fiction classic with a collection of posters, enamel pins, apparel, and vinyl. Phantom City Creative have deftly encapsulated the still terror the Nostromo crew encounter with this pair of posters. Joining these otherworldly screen prints is a brand new long-sleeve tee featuring art by Paige Reynolds – this rendition of the Xenomorph is full of depth, detail, and interstellar dread.”
“We are also pleased to present four enamel pins Mother would be proud to wear. Florian Bertmer has brought technical detail and pitch-perfect renderings to the forefront with his Kane and Chestburster pins, while Matt Taylor dives deeper into the franchise with a classic ALIEN versus PREDATOR pairing. No matter your fandom, there’s something for everyone in this expansive collection.”
Head over to Mondo’s website to learn more about the new goodies!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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