August 28, 2007

Well Played, Poster: Storm Warning

This poster has apparently been floating around out there for a while now, but I only just saw it. It's the poster for an upcoming Aussie horror flick entitled Storm Warning. It is directed by Jamie Blanks (he made the ridiculously fun Urban Legend and ridiculously ridiculous Valentine) and will be released sometime in the next ten, twenty, thirty years (it's being distributed by Dimension, an extention of those pesky Weinstein brothers' company).

Upon seeing the poster I actually thought it was a tad silly, but then I saw the trailer and realised this poster perfect. It's probably the first poster in a long time that, like the film it's advertising, actually harkens back to the old days of horror. Those big bloodied eyes, the man with the shotgun, the ominous house. I particularly love the lightning strikes and the use of greens, blues and aquas throughout (the movie is connected to the water after all). And I love that it looks like an island in this expansive sea and these characters are warnings not to go there, with the very tip pointing at this lonely isolated boat (the movie is set on an island after all).


[click to enlarge]


It's actually quite great, don't you think? It totally tells you everything you need to know. "THE SHOCKING NEW FILM FROM THE DIRECTOR OF URBAN LEGEND" - while Urban Legend is neither shocking nor particularly great as anything than a silly post-Scream slasher flick - I love it when posters trump up their movies as things such as "SHOCKING!" Perhaps that's just me, but it really gets me pumped up. I wish movies by legendary directors had captions saying "THE STUNNING NEW FILM BY MARTIN SCORSESE" or whatever. Makes it feel special, non?

I'll ignore the silly tagline - "Survival Can Be Murder" huh? - and just focus on the fact that this feels like one of those old school painted posters that used to be so in vogue (and particularly amazing) and that it looks scary in itself. It hasn't gone out of it's way to look horrifying (no naked women holding decapitated heads, no decomposing limbs representing the number of sequels, etc), just a rather simple design, but done with enough pizazz to work incredibly well and to stand out. Even if the movie looks like it could either be a) really bloody scary or b) really gross, the poster is creepy and visually kind of amazing.

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