The Art of Horror Movies - An illustrated history

Of all the genres of movies there are, none has produced movie posters that are as colourful and lurid as those created to sell the humble horror movie. In fact, the more humble the horror movie, the more lurid the cover. Some of history's greatest movie posters are reprinted in this sumptuous coffee table book that spans from the earliest silents right through to Resident Evils and Underworlds that were around and about at the cinema in recent times.

Considering the length of the publishing process, no book can ever hope to be completely up to date, but considering that the art of the movie poster is dying on its feet with the advent of photoshop and video screen advertising, this may the last book to celebrate the art of the nasty poster for nasty movies.

It's not just filled with posters for the likes of Nosferatu, The Curse of the Werewolf and (ahem) The Human Centipede, there are some original pieces that celebrate the likes of The Masque of the Red Death, The Mummy and Pan's Labyrinth.

There are words as well, though they rarely amount to half the page and don't really tell any hardcore horror or movie poster fan anything that they didn't already know about or didn't really need to know about. The words, though, are not what books like this are about. The pictures are the thing and it's unlikely that you're going to find a more comprehensive and visually appealing collection of horror movie poster art anywhere.

Horror art is always going to be something of an acquired taste and certainly this book's audience is going to be limited by the subject matter, but if you've acquired that taste then there is plenty here to enjoy.

So, with Halloween just over and Christmas on the horizon, treat the gore-lover in your life to this hefty tome of bright, black and red-drenched cinematic horror delights, the like of which we are unlikely to see again.

Style Over Substance?

Just the other night I got the chance to see SCOTT PILGRIM vs THE WORLD and had a thoroughly good time thank you very much. It is very funny, nicely played, has lots of visual gags and tons of cinematic creativity.

What it doesn't do is make any sense. This is a film where the story isn't the thing. To keep dating the girl of his dreams Scott Pilgrim needs to defeat her seven evil exes. Why? Because it's a fun idea. This is not reality. This couldn't possibly happen. This isn't meant to be taken seriously. It's a fun ride rather than a true film.

Kids today spend more time on computer games than going to the pictures and they are now the mass entertainment market of choice. That SCOTT PILGRIM vs THE WORLD therefore does everything it can to look like a video game shouldn't come as a shock. Defeated enemies scatter coins like Sonic scatters rings, there are popup screens and scores and even an extra life that comes in handy towards the end. There are even magic doors.

OK, so films don't have to tell a 'real' story to be great and they don't have to make any sense either (anyone who's seen LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD will attest to that), but is this a trend? AVATAR looked like a videogame and was certainly more interested in putting pretty pictures on the screen than having a plot or acting and stuff. TRANSFORMERS 2 had big robots hitting other big robots and...er...nothing else. SPEED RACER was nothing but flashy visuals. CLASH OF THE TITANS was an empty CGI-fuelled experience.

Fortunately, I don't think this trend is going to go damage cinema too much. There have always been films that look better than the content they are filled with. Right now, though, there are films that are as good in terms of plot and character as they are in visual quality. Think back to last year's MOON, which was all about plot and character. This year's biggest hit has been INCEPTION which has a startlingly good plot for such a huge blockbuster and the animated likes of TOY STORY 3 and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON have shown that even a kids' movie can max out on plot and contain good characters. KICK ASS shows that a plot can still be good whilst being matched to a great visual sense.

So let's just sit back and enjoy the hybrid experience that is SCOTT PILGRIM vs THE WORLD (because it is a really good night out) and not worry about the future of science fiction in the cinema. There will always be the empty eye-candy, but the good plot and likeable character is making a comeback.

Moon
Inception [Blu-ray]
How to Train Your Dragon (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Dragon Double Pack) [Blu-ray]
Toy Story 3 [Blu-ray]

3D - The creature that wouldn't die

Journey to the Center (sic) of the Earth is in cinemas now. In a (very) limited number of those it can be viewed in the wonder of stereoscopic 3D. The new system is called RealD and this is the first film using the system to be released in the UK.

3D is a gimmick that first showed up with the hysterical reaction that the film studios had to the possibilities of television. How were they to fight the menace of the box in the corner that could entertain people without all that effort of getting out of the chair, travelling miles in the car, queueing for tickets and having someone coming out of the previous showing spoiling it all by saying 'isn't it a shame she dies at the end?'

Back then the studios tried everything; making screens bigger, making films bigger, making popcorn buckets bigger. There was a plethora of ideas to set cinema apart from the upstart cathode ray tube. My favourite remains smellovision, but along with that scratch'n'sniff sensation there was 3D.

3D came and went. Then, in the early 80s it came and went again. And now it's back again with the advent of RealD and we're told that it never looked better.

The thing about 3D was never that the technology was a problem. Sure you had to wear those bloody silly glasses, but that was all part of the fun. The problem has always been in the films that it was used in. They were only rarely any good and almost never were able to resist the impulse to throw stuff at the audience.

Two of the best 3D movies ever made were It Came From Outer Space and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Both of these were exploitation sci fi movies and both were shot in 3D, but neither of them got hung up on the medium and just used it to tell compelling stories. Sadly, this is not the common experience. Even the latest 3D extravaganza hasn't learned the lesson and insists on having Brendan Fraser's spit, dinosaur snot and who knows what else being hurled at the undeserving audience.

If 3D is ever to get out of the shadow of its gimmicky legacy and become a legitimate tool of filmmaking then this kind of juvenility will have to be disposed of. If it can't then RealD will go the way of many other such systems before it.