Cavalcade of Awesome

The movie poster can either be the best thing or the worst thing about a movie. If the movie studios are careful, they can sell the movie on poster alone. What usually happens though is the studios want to put the most recognizable faces on the poster and what we end up with is a horribly composed Photoshop creation of like 3-5 faces over some action scene in the movie. Utter crapola.

However, sometimes movie studios get a wild hair and create some ridiculous movie poster that has to be seen to be believed. The actual movie couldn’t possibly live up to the greatness of the poster, but you want to see the movie to find out.

Here are some of those posters.  You can click any of the images to see them BIGGER.

Ape (1976) – Giant gorilla + Giant shark + Giant snake = F**king AWESOME.  Obviously this movie was trying to cash in on the ’70s remake of King Kong with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange (note the Not to be Confused With… disclaimer), but I don’t remember that Kong fighting a shark. Or stepping on and crushing a cruise ship while strangling a giant snake.  Maybe that’s why the King Kong remake sucked.  Replace Jessica Lange with a giant shark and you would have me at hello.

(Via Lost Video Archive)
Too Late for Tears (1949) – “WHERE’S MY DINNER?!” *SMACK* “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?!” *SMACK* “I HAVE NO TIME FOR YOUR TEARS!” *SMACK* Wow. Just…wow.

(Via Wrong Side of the Art)
Champion of Death (1975) – Okay, you have a movie starring the awesome Sonny Chiba called Champion of Death. What goes on the poster?  Chiba karate chopping a giant bull right between the eyes.  Wha-?!  This movie was also called Karate Bullfighter, which is pretty awesome and brings some much needed sense into the poster design, however, when you know that this movie is about a famous sensei who founded a popular style of Japanese karate and has nothing to do with bullfighting, we are right back into Crazytown.

(Via Wrong Side of the Art)
The Devil’s Partner (1961) -It’s always fun to speculate what these movies are about based on the poster.  Here you have a naked chick riding a centaur (!) through a cemetery while being watched by an invisible devil.  Yeah, I don’t really care what the movie is about, I just want to see that insanity and have it wash over me like warm sunshine.

(Via Wrong Side of the Art)
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) – First of all, I thought the walking dead were zombies.  If the Cap’n is fighting the walking dead he should be called Zombie Hunter.  Secondly, I think the walking dead don’t necessarily fear him, it’s his outfit.  Cape, tights and a buccaneer shirt with puffy sleeves?  That’s what he picks to go out vampire hunting?  Unlike Twilight, in this movie it’s not the vampires that are gay.

(Via Wrong Side of the Art)
Santo and Blue Demon vs Dracula and The Wolfman (1973) – Mexican wrestlers vs classic movie monsters.  This looks AMAZING.  I’m shocked at how obviously awesome this concept is and why I never thought of it before.  You may be surprised to know that this movie is only one of about 1,000 movies about Santo and Blue Demon who are two of the most famous Mexican luchadores.  Other titles include bad ass battles like Santo and Blue Demon vs Frankenstein, Santo vs Blue Demon in Atlantis, Santo vs The Mafia of Vice (!) and Santo vs The Strangler.  The Strangler dies at the end of that last movie, but being the bad ass tough guy that he is The Strangler returns in the sequel Santo vs The Ghost of The Strangler.  How have I not watched any of these movies before now?!  FYI, I just checked and Netflix has two of these movies; Blue Demon and the Champions of Justice and Santo and the Royal Eagle.  I’m on it.

(Via Wrong Side of the Art)
The Barn of the Naked Dead (1974) – BARN of the NAKED dead?  Really?  Great artwork on the poster, but…really?  Reading the synopsis on IMDB this movie is about Andre, a maniac farmer who traps girls in his barn and trains them to perform circus tricks (What?  Why?).  Oh, also, his father is a mutated monster because the barn sits next to a nuclear test facility.  Yeah, someone read that script and said, “Let’s do this!”

Land of Lions (timeless) -Mr Rahi is apparently the Pakistani Chuck Norris.  Just look at this poster.  What you see is probably the greatest poster ever conceived in the history of forever.  Rahi displays such fury as he wears the sh*t out of some silk pajamas while also stabbing to death two huge lions who are eating him alive.  I grew a thick carpet of hair on my chest just looking at this poster.  If you looked up the word “bad ass” in the dictionary, this is the picture you would find.  I really have no idea what this movie is about but I think the movie’s plot is irrelevant at this point.  This could be the poster for every movie ever made from now until I die and I would be completely fine with that.

Hitlar (1980) – Another awesome movie poster featuring Mr Sultan Rahi.  One look at this ridiculous poster and I’m wondering what the hell could this movie possibly be about.  Oh, I guess it’s about Hitler.  And Nazis.  Maybe some strippers, too?  I’m not sure.  Looking at IMDB, this movie is about Hitler escaping Germany and moving to Pakistan and raising a family (awwwwww).  His son, Hitlar, grows up just like him (obviously) but without the aspirations of world domination because the son only tries to take over a small Pakistani town.  It’s not clear whether the son’s first name or last name is Hitlar.  If it’s his last name, changed to hide his identity, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard because it sounds EXACTLY like the original last name.  If it’s his first name, then…Hitlar Hitler?!  Yikes.

(Via Wrong Side of the Art)
Destroy All Monsters (1968) – Japan is known for their monster movies like Godzilla but HOLY BALLS could they have crammed any more awesome monster fighting action into this poster?  There must be like 15 monsters on there.  The poster has a great tagline, “The Horror of Every Monster Known to Man Ravaging the Earth!”  Very nice.  Now, I know it says these monsters are ravaging the Earth, but it really looks like they are on the moon.  First, you see space in the background.  Also, there’s a rocket ship flying fairly close by and the planet in the upper left actually looks like Earth.  So are they on the moon or on Earth?

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This entry was posted on July 21, 2010 at 2:25 pm and is filed under advertising, movies, pop culture with tags advertising, movies, pop culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.