Luckily she didn't lose her aiming eye.
As I’ve mentioned before, poster design is one of my favourite things in the world. It goes hand-in hand with two lifelong obsessions of mine; music and cult movies. Since I was a child my rooms have been adorned with posters of bands and cheap movies where I’d lie on my bed and sketch out the film titles and band logos.
So it’s no surprise that I should find myself in a career where I get to make things like this every day.
In what world do you see a poster like that and then NOT watch the flick!?!?
The draw of these posters, to me at least, is not just in the ridiculousness of the movie titles but in the photography, illustration and the typography. The hyperbole in promoting the film doesn’t hurt either (it’s amazing how every film can be the most terrifying, brutal, exciting or wild film in existence, according to their posters).
Shotguns are a theme that recur with stunning frequency.
These films came out of the infamous 42nd street Grindhouse cinemas in NYC. This is where the adult picture houses, strip clubs and brothels of 60s and 70s New York flourished, the perfect venue to screen low budget exploitation flicks, gory horror movies and over the top action movies.
The production companies responsible for these films took the language and styling of film posters from Hollywood and cranked the styling up to the max. At the time, having a solid poster and a gripping trailer were more important than having a good movie to back them up. In fact, this is often how these movies were sold to investors.
Well, shotguns and the devil, of course.
Producers would sit and come up with a handful of titles and tag lines. They would take them to a poster designer who would let their imagination run wild using the name and tagline as inspiration to come up with the most outlandish poster they could imagine. The posters would all get shown to investors who would then pick the ones they think will sell, then all you have to do is make a movie that looks a bit like the poster. Easy.
I recommend everyone watch Mr No Legs. It's awful, but amazing. In the way that only a film about a black belt martial artist and feared gang enforcer with no legs and two shotguns built into his wheelchair can.
As a result, it was not uncommon for customers to be sold on the hyperbole only to be sat wondering how they managed to get duped into paying for the trash they were watching. After all, once they were over the threshold, their ticket money was collected and it didn’t matter.
Blaxploitation, and particularly Blaxploitation Horror, has some of the best posters and titles in the game.
This isn’t to say that all of the movies were terrible. Far from it. Some have gone on to be legitimate classics and inspired movies for generations to come. For example, what would Tarantino be if it weren’t for the Grindhouse? The styling echoed through not only his films but the posters that go with them.
Simon doesn't seem like a particularly witchy or regal name... but you go get it, Simon!
So, those are some of my favourite Grindhouse movie posters, but to share every poster I love would require a whole website dedicate to that alone. If you do feel inclined to watch any of these, I can’t promise the films are as good as the posters are but really, do you want them to be? Laughing at the movies is as much fun as the movie itself often is.
Let's end on an uplifting note
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