This is the incredibly scarce British quad for the release of Dario Argento‘s Tenebrae (AKA Tenebre), which marked the Italian horror maestro’s return to the giallo genre with which he made his name, following two excursions into supernatural horror with Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Argento often credits himself with starting the trend for Italian giallo films with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), despite the fact that directors including Mario Bava and Umberto Lenzi had been working on films that met all the criteria of the sub-genre since 1963. After a bruising experience whilst making Inferno in conjunction with Hollywood (in the form of 20th Century Fox) and the film meeting a lukewarm reception upon release, Argento returned with fresh enthusiasm to create what is arguably one of the best giallos of all.

Italian-American actor Anthony Franciosa stars as the American author Peter Neal, famous for having written a series of violent horror novels, who travels to Rome to promote his latest novel ‘Tenebrae’. Soon after arriving Neal is confronted by two police detectives (played by Giuliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro) who inform him that a murder has been committed by a killer obsessed with his novels, and a letter sent to his hotel room confirms this. Soon after, a journalist who had accused Neal of creating ‘misogynist filth’ and her lesbian lover are brutally murdered by the same razor blade-wielding killer. Another letter arrives at Neal’s hotel room and the author decides to try and discover who is behind the murders as the threat to him and his entourage escalates. This being a giallo, and an Argento one at that, there are plenty of twists to keep the viewer discombobulated right to the end.

Argento claims that the inspiration for the story came from an experience he had at the hands of an obsessive fan whilst working on an unfinished project in Hollywood towards the end of the 1970s. What started as a friendly series of phone calls from someone claiming to love his work escalated into something darker and more threatening, and the director eventually fled back to Rome when it became clear that the person was seriously unhinged. It’s also something of a riposte to the criticisms Argento had received from some critics and commentators who claimed his films were overly violent towards women and that his casual misogyny could encourage real-world violence from his films’ fans. There’s a reason Peter Neal remarks to a pushy journalist ‘Let me ask you something? If someone is killed with a Smith & Wesson revolver… Do you go and interview the president of Smith & Wesson?’

Tenebrae was released into UK cinemas in 1982 with 4 seconds of cuts imposed by the BBFC, but soon after its release on video in 1983 the film fell foul of the infamous video nasty debacle which saw 72 films deemed to be in violation of the obscene publications act. 39 films on the Director of Public Prosecutions‘ list were successfully prosecuted and banned from rental or sale in the UK, despite the fact that many, including Tenebrae, had already seen cinema releases with BBFC approval. It took years before relaxation in censorship saw many of the films being re-released on video and DVD, and it wasn’t until 2003 that Tenebrae was finally available in a completely uncut form.

The image of the murdered woman on this quad was originally painted by the Italian artist Renato Casaro for the Italian poster but the bloody cut in the throat seen on the original was clearly seen as too much for the British market and a red bow was painted in its place. The quad’s design was handled by the London-based studio Graffiti Productions, which was started in 1969 by two friends Paul Brown-Constable and Nimal Jayasekera. The pair worked on marketing for an eclectic range of films, including several international releases, plus homegrown titles like Scum and a few Hollywood productions. As well as posters the firm was one of the first to take on work for  home video distributors at the start of the boom in the early 1980s. Most of their posters are easy to identify because they either feature a stylised company logo or a line of text, as on this poster.

This is the photo style B1 poster for the release of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, which was the 26th film in the series featuring the King of the Kaiju (giant monsters). The film was also the fourth release in the third generation of Godzilla films, which is known as the Millenium Series, and it marked his fourth showdown with Mechagodzilla. Unlike the rest of the Millennium series, this film shares continuity with the earlier Toho productions, including the original Godzilla (1954).

This poster features the Japanese Actress Yumiko Shaku who stars as Japanese Defence Force Lieutenant Akane Yashiro, a Maser Cannon operator who is made a scapegoat after her actions fail to stop a rampaging member of Godzilla’s species. During the same battle, scientists realise that Godzilla is now immune to Maser fire and, after the skirmish is over, they begin work on a new weapon to stop him in the future. Using the skeleton of the original Godzilla that was defeated back in 1954, scientists create a new cyborg Mechagodzilla that is inducted into the Defense Force and given human controllers as part of the new Kiryu squadron.

Akane is given a role as a pilot despite suspicion from some of her squad mates. The pilots are located in a giant VTOL plane that hovers above Mechagodzilla, relaying instructions to it. During the reveal of the new machine to the public, Godzilla appears and as the two start to battle, Godzillas roar apparently awakens something within the original skeleton of Mechagodzilla and the machine goes on a rampage, destroying much of the city around it, once Godzilla has retreated. After bringing the machine under control the Kiryu squadron continue to work on Mechagodzilla in preparation for the next monster attack. When Godzilla appears once more, another battle commences which sees the remote control technology damaged. Akane decides to risk a descent to earth, where she enters Mechagodzilla and pilots the machine from within.

The film was well received by Japanese audiences and, as can be seen from the description above, was clearly one of the films that had an influence on director Guillermo Del Toro’s recent monsters versus machines film Pacific Rim.

The original trailer can be watched on YouTube.

Another Earth, an excellent, haunting sci-fi drama released in 2011 marked the feature film debut of director Mike Cahill, who co-wrote and co-produced the film along with Brit Marling, the main actress in the film (and focus of this American one sheet). Marling stars as Rhoda Williams an enthusiastic astronomy student living in West Haven, Connecticut who discovers she’s been accepted to study at MIT and, after celebrating with friends, foolishly decides to drive home drunk. As she listens to a story on the news about a recently discovered Earth-like planet, her attention drifts long enough to cause her to smash into another car, instantly killing a woman and child and putting the driver, John Burroughs (William Mapother) into a coma.

Wracked with guilt, and having served four years in prison, Rhoda hides herself away from contact with much of the outside world and works as a janitor at a local school. She visits William, who has since emerged from his coma and has no knowledge of who killed his wife and child, at his home under the pretence of being a house maid offering her services and the pair spark up a relationship. All the time William is unaware that she was the person responsible for the death of his loved ones, but when the other Earth moves closer to ours Rhoda enters a competition to win a (potentially one-way) ticket to visit the new planet and their relationship is jeopardised, the truth is revealed and William struggles to cope. The film cleverly weaves the intriguing idea of a mirror Earth into a relationship drama, and the subtle ending hints at multiple possibilities for the characters’ journeys beyond the time which the audience shares with them.

This one sheet was designed by the hugely prolific Los Angeles (and London) design studio Ignition Print, who also appear to work on video advertising and film trailers for various big name brands.

Warlords of Atlantis was the fourth and final entry in a series of British sci-fi/fantasy b-movies that were directed by Kevin Connor and starred the prolific American actor Doug McClure, known for his hammy leading man performances (McClure was one of the inspirations for The Simpsons’ Troy ‘You may remember me from…’ McClure). The series began with The Land That Time Forgot in 1975 and continued with At the Earth’s Core (1976) and The People That Time Forgot (1977). The initial three were shepherded through production by Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky’s Amicus Productions, which was based at Shepperton studios and is perhaps best remembered for its series of portmanteau horror films. By the time Warlords of Atlantis was released the company was almost defunct and so EMI Films stepped in and produced it, utilising many of the same cast and crew as the previous films.

The story is typically ludicrous and the film begins with a red hot meteorite crashing into the earth’s ocean during the title sequence. The film then moves to a large boat floating out at sea at the end of the 19th century with an English archaeologist Professor Aitken (Donald Bisset) and his son Charles (Peter Gilmore) onboard. The pair have chartered a crew, led by engineer Greg Collinson (McClure), to take them out to a spot in the ocean where they plan to use a diving bell to explore the ocean floor for reasons unclear. When Charles and Greg travel below the surface the craft is attacked by a (very rubbery) prehistoric sea monster, which they manage to fight off before discovering a strange gold statue.

After the statue is sent up to the ship, three of the crew members decide they want to keep it for themselves and set about sabotaging the mission by cutting the line to the diving bell and shooting the professor. Suddenly a giant octopus attacks the ship, grabbing the crew members and dragging them under, before collecting the diving bell and depositing them all in a mysterious undersea chamber. The group are greeted by Atmir (Michael Gothard looking like an electro-band reject) who explains that Atlantis is not a myth and that it is in fact comprised of seven cities, some of which are crumbling ruins thanks to attacks from huge creatures. After leading the group to the fourth city Vaar, most of the crew are thrown in to prisons but Charles is granted an audience with the Atlantean king and queen, which is where their true origins and intentions are revealed.

Whilst everything moves with a decent pace the story is more than a bit garbled and the low-budget is stretched to breaking point in several scenes with some terrible matte paintings illustrating the point. The creature work in particular is mostly of the low-grade variety, although the giant octopus scenes are relatively well done and some elements of the production design are very successful (the diving bell is great, for example). The acting is mostly good, whilst obviously of the b-movie variety, with McClure and Gilmore both being eminently watchable and the score by Michael Vickers deserves special mention. Despite its obvious shortcomings, Warlords of Atlantis is still a very enjoyable film and marked a decent end to the run of films from Connor and McClure.

The artwork on this Japanese B2 is by Seito, one of my favourite Japanese artists who was responsible for several fantastic illustrated posters during the 1970s and 1980s. Little is known about the man himself, even in his native country. To see the other posters I’ve collected by him click here.

It’s hard to believe but Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece Pulp Fiction celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and it’s easy to forget just what an impact it has had on cinema since its release. Whilst certainly not the first film to use a nonlinear, fractured narrative, Pulp Fiction arguably introduced the idea to a wide audience and did it with incredible bravado. Few films (pre-Reservoir Dogs) had characters speaking in such rapid-fire, pop culture-aware dialogue as Tarantino’s creations and few had mixed humour and violence as casually (and cleverly) as this. Blessed with deft editing and a killer soundtrack, all the ingredients combined together to make for a worldwide critical and commercial success, and cemented Tarantino’s reputation as an auteur filmmaker.

The film marked a watershed moment for independent cinema, particularly in the way it was financed and distributed. After Tarantino and screenwriting partner Roger Avary agreed a deal with Jersey Films (the production company part-owned by Danny DeVito) which was beneficial for all parties, the team initially attempted to produce the film with Columbia Tristar. After the script was eventually rejected by them for a litany of reasons, Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax, newly acquired by Disney, stepped in and agreed to finance it. Tarantino’s producing partner Lawrence Bender had the canny idea of paying each of the main actors the same amount per week, no matter their status. Part of the film’s success was in its superb casting of familiar faces playing against type, including Bruce Willis as an amoral boxer, John Travolta as an ageing hitman (Travolta’s career saw a huge boost on the back of this film) and Uma Thurman as a drug-taking wife of a mob boss.

It was an image of a sultry, raven-haired Uma Thurman that was used in (virtually) every market around the world and made for one of the most iconic one sheets of the 1990s (in both teaser and final style formats). For its hugely successful release in the UK, Miramax decided to use the same image of Thurman but adapted it to the landscape format, created a unique title design and also incorporated the dictionary definitions of Pulp and Fiction seen at the start of the film. Note that the packet of Lucky Strikes which had caused the teaser one sheet to be infamously withdrawn (after the cigarette manufacturer complained about its inclusion) has been digitally manipulated to obscure the logo as it was on the final one sheet.

Yes, this is the film where Vincent Gallo drives a motorbike around looking glum, crying occasionally and meeting random women before receiving an un-simulated blowjob from Chloë Sevigny. Gallo plays racer Bud Clay who is on a cross country trip to a track in California and is trying to repress memories of his one true love, Daisy (Sevigny), by meeting different women along the way. The actor was also the film’s director, screenwriter, editor and took care of almost all of the other technical details.

The film’s first cut was roughly 25 minutes longer than the one that was eventually released worldwide. Its re-editing was as a result of the savaging it received at the Cannes Film Festival. Legendary critic Roger Ebert declared the film to be the worst in the history of the festival, which saw him and Gallo enter into a war of words, with the director calling Ebert a ‘fat pig with the physique of a slave trader.’ The critic responded by paraphrasing a statement attributed to Winston Churchill, saying that ‘one day I will be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.’ When the new cut was released in the US Ebert surprised many by giving it his signature thumbs up.

For a cool $1,000,000 you can actually purchase the main man’s little swimmers, should you want to birth the next generation Gallo, whilst $50,000 will net you a night with him (ladies only).

This is the American one sheet for the original 2004 release of the film into a limited number of smaller cinemas. There’s also a one sheet that features a similar image but is mostly white (no yellow) and is often referred to as the teaser.