Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art.
If the movie Halloween ushered in the modern slasher horror film, the original Friday the 13th helped solidify the “horror boom” of the late 1970s and early 80s. (And also set the standard for a bit more gore than John Carpenter’s Halloween offered.)
To celebrate the long running horror series and it’s 25th anniversary, a new book about the Friday the 13th film series has been released: Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th. “Fully illustrated with over 500 never-before-seen photos, rare archival documents and production materials, this is the ultimate oral and visual memoir of the most successful horror franchise in the history of motion pictures.”
The original Friday the 13th movie poster depicts the unknown “mystery killer” by placing an illustration of a scene in the woods within the silhouette of the slasher. (This also illustrates a basic design challenge for many horror film posters: How do you depict an unseen or somewhat abstracted image of a movie monster/killer/villian/etc. that you cannot reveal the identity of?) The one-sheet’s camp scene is surprisingly busy for a “scene within the poster” depiction — the trees and leaves take on a “television static” quality — a blue tint and other-worldly glow around the killer’s body gives it almost a science fiction feel. The disparity of these traits should make the poster less effective, but the image still works; perhaps it helps that they emphasized the killer’s knife in hand by dripping blood onto the film title logo.
In 1989 Paramount Pictures released a teaser poster for the horror film Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan. The poster depicted hockey masked killer Jason Voorhees slicing a large knife through the well known I LOVE NY logo. This was a fairly effective movie poster design which gets the “killer tourist” plot point across quickly. (In reality, the Jason character only spends the final few minutes of the film in New York City.)
But Jason Voorhees was no match for the New York State Department of Economic Development, which owns the trademark to I ♥ NY. The state tourism office demanded the poster be pulled. Paramount quickly replaced the poster. This was probably for the best, since the state of New York spends a lot of time suing anyone using any variation of I ♥ [blank].
The I LOVE NY logo was designed in 1976 by legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser. The logo is said to be the most imitated logo in history. It was part of a campaign to pull the state of New York out of its economic slump in the 1970s.
