As a kid with an over-active imagination, the thing that scared me most was a poster for a SAW film (probably). You could just see the outlines of something that looked like a rotten green head under a huge “censored” sticker. The bus drove past our school everyday while we were having lunch, leaving me pretty terrified and unable to eat. Am I the only one wimpy enough to be scared by a poster?
xx, Flo
Flo,
I’ve definitely been terrified by movie print ads before! When I was young the poster for THE PROPHECY freaked me out big time!
In fact I still think it’s scarier than the movie itself.
http://www.impawards.com/1979/prophecy.html
Also, I wonder if the censored sticker on the SAW-bus made it even scarier because then you had imagine what could be so bad that they had to cover it up?
BTW, sorry if I used the wrong SAW image up there on the post I just took a wild guess!
Well, it wasn’t a movie poster, but my brothers once brought home this poster of skeletons playing various musical instruments. I think it was for a heavy metal band. (Back in the day my brothers were big enough KISS fans that the oldest went as one of the members for Halloween. Though as adults I never hear them listening to any of that stuff.) I can’t remember much about it now other than the fact there was kind of a golden glow about it.
And that it freaking terrified me.
I even tried to make my own poster to replace it with. For some reason I drew ghosts that looked a lot like the ones from Pac-Mac killing a woman. I thought it would be gruesome enough that my brothers would take down the creepy skeleton musicians and hang my blood thirsty ghosts instead.
They didn’t. And they probably worried about me a bit.
I remember being terrified by the print ad for ‘Alien’ when I was a kid. It was partly the artwork, and partly that I’d heard it was the scariest movie ever made. When my mom and dad finally went to see it along with some friends of theirs who were in town, I begged them not to go. I thought they’d have fear-induced heart attacks or something and die.
Yeah, I was a nervous kid.
JJR,
There was something kind of menacing about KISS when they first came out (and before the Phantom TV movie). I remember seeing KISS graffiti (with the swastika “S”‘s) all over my school before I knew who they were and I recall worrying that it was some kind of cult.
I don’t know where that idea came from but I guess back then the Manson murders were big in my head because I had made the mistake of looking through a paperback of Helter Skelter at my cousins house!
Harry,
I’ll back you up on that ALIEN poster. It’s amazing how something that shows you so little can be so intimidating.
Another one that had me shaking in my sneakers was “Mother Day”…
http://www.wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-m/mothers_day_poster_01.jpg
The poster for ‘Whatever Happened To Aunt Alice’ was a concern of mine as a kid.
It was in a movie memorabilia shop at a local casino that we passed often enough that I remember getting into the habit of averting my eyes when we’d go by.
One day it wasn’t there anymore and that was even creepier… who would buy such a thing?
Ya, the AUNT ALICE vhs cover used to work on me as a kid too. I just bought the poster and hung it a while ago. The movie’s pretty tame stuff (and to further mislead, I don’t even think there’s a character named aunt Alice), but the cover is just morbid with the black eyes and blood coming out from the lady’s nose.
I remember that skeleton heavy metal band poster! The lead singer was playing a splatter-shaped guitar and was surrounded by golden yellow fog onstage. The record section at the local Woolco had a poster bin with those little slots in it. I’m sure that was one of ’em!
The artwork was awesome and looked like something Greg Hildebrandt would do. Would love to see that again.
Also, my sister had a “Punk Cats” poster on her wall featuring a kitty punk-rock band wearing little sunglasses, leather jackets, and guitars. It was very cute.
@ Craig,
Actually, ‘Aunt Alice’ is Ruth Gordon’s character. Her nephew is the handsome race car driver fellow.
I just watched the movie for the first time the other day on TCM and was surprised how good it was… though not at all what I expected.
@boliver – I had forgotten that about the guitar but once you mentioned the fog it all came rushing back! Oh, that poster scared me a lot. I was just young enough to have it make me think my brothers would end up possessed by demons because of that poster. The music didn’t make me think that, just the poster. Like if it was a carrier of evil spirits just waiting to be hung on a teenage boy’s wall and steal his soul….