movie posters – That Was A Bit Mental

This is the Polish poster for Jaws. Trust me, it's nowhere near as crazy as the other ones in this article. — This is the Polish poster for Jaws. Trust me, it’s nowhere near as crazy as the other ones in this article

You know, it isn’t just the actual content of movies that qualifies for That Was A Bit Mental.

There’s more to a film than watching it, you see: there’s the trailer, there’s the potential DVD special features and, of course, there’s the poster promoting it.

For the most part American and British posters are relatively dull. Get the main actors, slap photos of them all looking moody on the front, stick the name of the film at the top and print that prick.

In other countries, however, there’s a bit of thought involved. With that in mind, here’s the first of a series of features imaginatively titled ‘mental foreign film posters’, in which I show… look, we both know I don’t need to even finish that sentence.

Since I usually like to start on a high and deliver increasingly disappointing offerings as time goes on, I’m beginning with the country that provides arguably the weirdest films posters of all: Poland. Continue reading “Mental foreign film posters: Poland” →

Remember the alternative version of 300 where Gerard Butler was replaced by the guy who played Treguard in Knightmare? Well, now you do.

Earlier this year I shared some examples of Poland’s bizarre movie poster art. But the Poles don’t have the monopoly on advertising films in odd ways.

In the mid 1980s VCR technology came to Ghana, allowing entrepreneurial types to run their own film screenings.

Armed with their VCR, a TV and a portable generator, these kind chaps would travel around Ghanaian towns and set up a sort of temporary cinema, showing the locals a film then moving on to the next location.

In order to promote their screenings, they hired local artists to create movie posters for them. Sometimes these posters were little more than paintings of the actual VHS cover, but sometimes – often when the artist hadn’t actually seen the film – the results were a little more bizarre.

These days Ghana’s economy is beginning to thrive and this practice is far less common, mainly because many Ghanaians are able to afford their own televisions and DVD players. But it’s fun to take a look back at how it used to be back in the day.

Continue reading “Mental Foreign Film Posters: Ghana” →