Wednesday 31 March 2010

Survival of the Dead nice cover shocker!

The poor taste left in my mouth by the heavy handed shit sandwich that was 'Diary of the Dead' left me with very little interest in 'Survival of the Dead', so much so that I was more or less unaware of it's existence until the DVD popped up in Tesco's a few weeks ago. No doubt released to cash in on the arrival of Zombieland, I would have no doubt picked it up out of curiosity regardless. And by picked up I mean physically picked up, looked at it, put it back. DVD prices drop faster than a crooked OCP executive these days, and todays £13 chart title is tomorrows 5 for £20 in HMV, so you have to be something really special for me to buy upon immediate release. Anyway, what actually caught my eye was the fantastic cover, which I love! No photoshop composite here, no sin city style black and white antics. This was good old fashioned cover art, probably digital but reeking of an artists touch. I wanted to buy it for the cover alone, but obviously common sense prevailed. For those outside of the UK, or who just haven't seen it here is the cover.


That's Alan Van Sprang. He now outranks Savini and Pilato as the actor
to have appeard in the most Romero Dead films. Shame they're the shit ones.

And here is the current US art which I've seen kicking around.

Bore me more...

Just doesn't compare in my opinion. I really miss those old school horror posters which rocked my gorehound world as a child, when artists like Drew Struzan were king.

Compare and contrast. Note the fantastic spoiler proof quote on the 'Michael Bay' version

Of course shitty posters for horror movies are nothing new. I remember all too well the undeserving cover art for 'An American Werewolf in London' and 'Day of the Dead' on the shelf of Stargazer's Video.

pure shit


But then I also remember the awe inspiring art for 'Fright Night'

pure gold

and one of my favourite posters of all time, for one of my favourite movies of all time.

Yep, that's the whole movie right there


Aaaah, bliss...

1 comment:

Party Slashers said...

Great art. I'm reminiscent as well for old posters. Seems like today most movie posters follow a formula which is all too common, and a lot of the time I feel like I've seen the movie before (i.e. big landscape with hero's back to us, close-up of someone's eye, two people back2back facing us). Fright Night's poster really stuck out for me. I remember being a kid and being terrified of the cover when walking around Blockbuster. Felt like more chances in artwork were taken more a couple of decades ago.