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.
During the last annual Saw III Halloween Blood Drive, the American Red Cross directed the film studio Lionsgate to remove Red Cross logos from the uniforms of the infamous Saw nurses in that year’s Saw III Blood Drive posters. At the time, the red cross logo revision made it very clear that the American Red Cross was not affiliated with the annual Halloween holiday blood drives organized by the studio to help promote the Saw film series.
What a difference a year makes.
For the upcoming release of Saw IV and the annual 2007 Saw IV Halloween Blood Drive, not only has Lionsgate returned with a new Saw Nurse Blood Drive poster, the motion picture studio managed to officially partner with the American Red Cross for this year’s charity blood donation drive event for the first time.
The SAW “Give Til It Hurts” blood drive has become a key element of the SAW franchise, as much a part of the horror hit’s annual rituals as its Halloween premiere date. Since the first SAW blood drive in 2004, SAW filmgoers have donated nearly 38,000 pints of blood to help save as many as 112,500 lives. Collection totals have doubled year after year: during the 2004 inaugural drive, 4,200 pints were collected, in 2005, 10,000 pints were collected, and in 2006, 23,493 pints were collected, resulting in tens of thousands of lifesaving blood transfusions.
Ironically enough, within days of this partnership announcement, the Red Cross in turn found themselves being sued for misuse of the Red Cross logo by the company Johnson & Johnson, which alleges the charity is licensing the red cross logo for “commercial purposes”, which they believe violates their trademark. The Red Cross does not agree. Confused yet?
The new Saw Halloween Blood Drive poster (as does all the previous blood drive posters) features photography by the co-president of Lionsgate theatrical marketing, Tim Palen. Palen has released a new book featuring his film advertising photography, including his work for the aforementioned Saw poster series. His book is appropriately titled Guts:
Award-winning fine art photographer Tim Palen serves up a visionary collection of images in his debut book collection GUTS, culled from his work in and around the marketing of six cutting-edge horror films. The 110-page book includes movie and event posters, production stills, outtakes, and location photos. The cover image — a photograph of red, glistening meat — telegraphs both the nature and sensibility of the work inside: sensual, sophisticated and veined with a drolly macabre sense of humor.
Guts: The Art of Marketing Horror Films features Palen’s image work for Lionsgate horror film releases including Saw and Hostel, along with editorial photography, such as a photo of Hostel director Eli Roth titled “Eli Roth Has the Biggest Dick in Hollywood” (not safe for work).
An interesting film poster key art subject matter are the many creatures (and monsters) found in the “wild kingdom”. In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, we thought we would post a few images of movie posters featuring all matter of animals inflicting various types of terror, horror, and mayhem. So here is a poorly written paragraph with a lot of movie poster image links:
The deadly creature menace goes all the way back to the prehistoric era of dinosaurs (and in this case, fur bikinis). Many victims become worm food. Battle against an empire of ants. Overcome a swarm of angry bees or a single fly. There are creepy spiders. Dirty rats. Not so harmless birds. It may be raining cats and dogs. There are plenty snakes (without a plane). Kissing a few frogs might be dangerous. Watch out when the fish are biting. Speaking of biting, what is the difference between a crocodile and an alligator? An octopus may be one of the largest sea creatures, but the scariest of all sea life will always be sharks. Then again, some work really hard to avoid pigs. Others wonder if man descended from gorillas or (space?) apes. And don’t forget the lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!
Then there are the most dangerous creatures of all: man… or is it woman?
One of the most popular promotions for the Saw movie franchise has been the annual Saw Halloween Blood Drive. This event seems to be a sly nod to the 1950s exploitation film era practice (pioneered by director William Castle) of warning the audience of the dangers of said horror film, complete with costumed medical personnel hired to appear at theaters to handle any audience medical emergencies that may arise from the “terror” depicted onscreen.
For the Saw and Saw II film releases, Lionsgate invoked their own image of medical personnel, in the form of a “Saw Nurse” appearing on the Halloween Saw Blood Drive poster and Saw II Blood Drive poster. Both promo posters were created in-house at Lionsgate, featuring the photography of Lionsgate President of Marketing Tim Palen. Keeping things in the studio family, Senior VP Erika Schimik appears as the nurse in both of Palen’s first two blood drive posters.
For the 2006 3rd Annual Saw 3 Blood Drive, the studio released a set of Saw nurse promotional posters featuring new photography by Tim Palen of several different “Saw Nurses” (including Erika Schimik making her third appearance). The five Saw III Nurse posters each feature various poses and groupings of gothic Saw nurses, ready to handle all the bloodletting needs.
Unlike the 1950s exploitation counterparts, these posters actually promoted something helpful: a real life blood drive that encourages fans to donate blood. For the 2004 1st Annual Saw Halloween Blood Drive, the blood drive collected 4,200 pints of blood. The 2005 2nd Annual Saw II Blood Drive garnered 10,000 liters of blood. The upcoming blood drive hopes to top the previous two in the amounts of blood “taken”.
Speaking of bloodletting, despite the good work of the annual Halloween promotion for blood donations, it seems the American Red Cross may not have appreciated the Saw nurses wearing the iconic (and trademarked by international treaty) Red Cross logo on their sexy uniforms. In response, Lionsgate has removed all the red crosses from the uniforms in a revised set of Saw III blood drive posters, with the creepy nurses no longer appearing to be working for the Red Cross, but still wanting your blood. For some reason, Lionsgate has a knack for creating banned Saw posters. Apparently having a movie poster banned or “censored” is a modern badge of honor.
The International Red Cross is fairly aggressive about stopping outside parties from using the red cross logo beyond use as a protection symbol established by the Geneva Convention. Some companies are allowed to use the red cross logo if their products existed before 1905, such as products produced by Johnson & Johnson. Since most people identify the logo as a universal symbol relating to medical care and aid, the red cross logo has appeared in everything from video games to lifeguard t-shirts — but in this modern age of intellectual property litigation, companies have been removing the red cross logo to avoid possible infringement:
A red cross symbol is not a generic symbol for first-aid, emergency, hospitals, healthcare or medical services, products or personnel. The red cross symbol is a trademark owned by the American Red Cross and protected by federal and state trademark law, unfair competition law and anti-dilution law, and it is also protected by federal criminal law (See 18 U.S.C. 706, 917). The American Red Cross vigorously pursues those who infringe American Red Cross trademarks.
Red cross logos aside, don’t forget to donate blood: “This Halloween, Give ‘Til It Hurts.”
What better way to end our Halloween themed week of horror movie posters than with the one-sheet from John Carpentar’s classic film Halloween? The king of “slasher movies” was shot in just 21 days in 1978. Made on a budget of $300,000, it became the highest-grossing independent movie ever made at that time.
The knife wielding pumpkin Halloween movie poster was created by artist Bob Gleason. The Gleason illustration features a subtle shift from the skin of the orange pumpkin to that of the killer’s hand — each band of the pumpkin’s face is also shaped like a knife. The repeating knife pattern is an effective counter to the image of a decorated jack-o-lantern. This pumpkin head stand-in for killer Michael Meyers is also another example of the “unseen killer” design problem we mentioned previously. Gleason went on to design the “skull pumpkin” image for the Halloween II one-sheet, and the “screaming mask” for the Halloween III: Season of the Witch poster.
If the horror movie Halloween provided the scares, Friday the 13th the gore, then A Nightmare on Elm Street would bring a touch of dark humor. The Elm Street film series featuring the “dream killer” Freddy Krueger would also handily put a film studio on the map. That’s why New Line Cinema is known as “The House that Freddy Built”. While not as apparent in the first film by Wes Craven, killer Freddy Krueger would rely on his “dark wit” in later sequels.
The Nightmare on Elm Street movie poster features Freddy’s bladed glove fingers hovering over the bed of star Heather Langenkamp. The crisp and striking style of the illustration is reminiscent of legendary movie poster artist Bob Peak. This should come as no surprise since the Elm Street one-sheet was illustrated by his son, Matthew Joesph Peak. While the stylized skull face illustration bears little resemblance to Freddy Krueger himself, it is nonetheless creepy. Artist Matthew Peak went on to illustrate other posters in the Elm Street film series.
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.
