Tag Archives: donald pleasence

Horror Movie Posters I Love: Alone In The Dark (1982)

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Back in the day, horror movie posters could make or break whether you would put down your hard earned cash to watch a film.  Trailers helped as well (more so nowadays), but if you saw a poster hanging in the theater lobby in the 80’s – you would most likely either be drawn to it or just walk right past it.  So once in a while, I like to go back and find old horror movie posters that I love, even if the actual movie ended up being crap.  Case in point: this poster for the 1982 slasher Alone In The Dark.

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This poster realllllllly makes me want to watch a slasher movie.  Maybe even go buy an axe too.  Actually, I really miss the old school slasher films and would give my right nut to get some decent additions to the sub genre nowadays.  That sounds extreme, I know, but that should tell you how much I love slashers.  I also love this poster, even though it’s simple.  And it reminds me of the original poster for Maniac, which only makes my love grow fonder.

As for the actual Alone In The Dark film, I wouldn’t get your hopes up if you haven’t seen it.  Sorry to bring this post down.  Sure it has big names like Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence, and Martin Landau – but overall it’s nothing more than a tepid (albeit somewhat enjoyable) 80’s slasher movie about mental patients who escape a hospital.  Yawwwwwn. You can watch it on Youtube if you’d like, but instead I would suggest gazing up at the poster again and drooling all over your keyboard.  Just make sure to have a towel handy because drooling isn’t very attractive.

Horror Movie Posters I Love: Creepers (1985)

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Movies with two names kind of annoy me.  But so is usually the case when we’re talking about the Italian horror genre.  No matter if you want to call Dario Argento’s 1985 psychic/insect movie Creepers or Phenomena, it has one of the best posters EVER!

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Now for whatever reason, there is a version of this poster that isn’t exposing Jennifer Connelly’s half-decaying bug face, but clearly the un-edited version is the keeper here.  The image above is actually an ad for the promotion of the VHS version of Creepers, but the tagline on the original poster is “It Will Make Your Skin Crawl“.  Fitting, considering there are a bunch of bugs flying around that could actually make your skin crawl.

I have to confess that I haven’t seen this movie in years.  And after looking at this poster again, I definitely need to revisit it.  Not only does it have the late great Donald Pleasence in it, but how the fuck can you go wrong with a movie that has Iron Maiden and Motorhead on the soundtrack?  Another thing that this poster is making me realize is that we need more horror movies about bugs.  Whether it’s spiders, cockroaches, or maybe a random remake of 1988’s movie about killer slugs appropriately titled Slugs – everyone can relate to bugs!  Get on that Hollywood.  Until then, it’s off to Amazon to purchase Creepers or Phenomena or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Horror Movie Posters I Love: Terror In The Aisles (1984)

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If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:  I love Taco Bell.  Oops….wrong revelation. What I meant to say is that if you throw a skull up on a horror movie poster, more than likely I’m going to love that poster.  So to no surprise, I loved the poster for the 1984 documentary, Terror In The Aisles:

Sure the tagline ‘It’s A Cute Above The Rest‘ is kind of cliche and cheesy.  But who cares.  Look at that skull!  I love the simplicity of it and if you look close, you can see a ton of horror titles within the skull.  For those who don’t know, Terror In The Aisles was a documentary that was surprisingly released in theaters in 1984.  With commentary both on screen and off from genre vets Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen, it was basically a walkthrough of horror movie history, featuring a lot of ‘best of’ clips.  A huge guilty pleasure of mine, it was recently released as a special feature for the Halloween II Blu-ray release.  Even though the focus is on the poster, I’ll leave you with a TV commercial promoting Terror In The Aisles, just to give you more of a nostalgia fix.