Europix 1974 Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things European Re-Release Movie Poster

What you are looking at here is the 1974 Europix Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things European re-release poster, once again designed by Alan Ormsby. I was really happy to find this on Ebay at a reasonable price. Although it has been discussed before - on this site in fact - the Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things remake has become something "official."  Fangoria Entertainment and Anchor Bay Entertainment are teaming up to make the redo of Bob Clark's '70s zombie flick a reality.  Drew Daywalt scripted the update and Tom Savini is on board to direct.

Filming is expected to begin later this year.  The film - similar to the '70s take - concerns a group of filmmakers who accidentally awaken the undead.

Winners of the 2013 Zombiethong Bikini Contest
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Never Glue a Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things Poster

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things movie poster

Here's what my Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things poster looks fully framed. In soft focus, of course. One of my favorite things about this poster is that when i received it from the person who had it since 1974, it came wrapped in a plastic wrapper from a meat department of a Wisconsin grocery store. That seemed really appropriate. The framer here wanted to tape it or glue it to a board and I said if you do I'll sell a kidney so I can sue you. She didn't, and it turned out perfectly. As far as I know. It's possible she glued the hell out of it. I'll never know, but I think I may have the nicest one of these in the entire world. 

April 2015: Maybe I should take a better picture of this. Hopefully one day I'll find a place to put it up.

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The Worst Movie Poster of All Time

Of course the worst movie poster of all time has to be for a four star movie. If that weren't true the Universe wouldn't make any sense, the same way for two decades every terrible movie at the video store had an awesome design on the box. I often stood there wondering why the person who designed the box didn't just make the movie, but apparently that was too much to ask. I think a lot of times the design team that does the movie posters and promotional designs never even meets the people who made the movie. I'm sure that's true. For instance, what happened here...

Why is Robert redford about to give Jane Fonda a Samoan Slam, and what the hell does that have to do with the movie The Electric Horseman. I vaguely remember he does pick her up at one point, here it just looks like two of the most glamorous of the 1970's have just been smooshed into one frightening chimera Head Ass monster. This literally may not be the worst movie poster of all time, and sadly, I'm almost positive that is the case, but it is in the running for most boring. Who put their stamp of approval on this and didn't fire the design team immediately? Willie Nelson is in this movie. A horse is in this movie. Did I mention two of the biggest stars of the 1970's are in this movie (a fact not made apparent by this curious picture of Jane Fonda's ass and head inserted in Robert Redford's crotch). Wait a minute, I made that sound a whole lot more interesting than it really is. 

January 25, 2015: I've seen several hundred more movie posters since I wrote this blog, and I can report this is still the worst. Although I will eternally be more disappointed by the Day of the Dead movie poster.  Pin It

The Monster Club British Quad Poster

British quad posters are really nice because they have a reputation of having great artwork with rich, saturated colors. The size 30x40 is a little different than the American 27x41. I just saw one on Ebay I really want and have been looking for for a long, long time, but it will be really hard to fit this into the budget in December. 

I recently got scooped on a collection of R Chetwnd Hayes books and there's no way I can afford the $250 for the vinyl soundtrack, but maybe with some clever money maneuvering I can get this beauty. I'm going to let it stew for a while. 

The poster was designed by British artist Graham Humphreys, and it was the first movie poster he worked on. Straight out of college, he was given a week and a half to create the poster from film transparancies, and his first effort was rejected as too scary as the distributor fancied that children would be watching The Monster Club. 

In an interview conducted by Film On Paper, Graham admits the job working on this poster wan't much fun at all because the client was slightly shadowy and wanted him to work from photos of the shoddily costumed monsters in the club and expected exact reproductions rather than anything creative. However, I think the poster turned out fine and I think I'm going to buy it. 

Welcome to the Monster Club from Thriller Video.

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Top Five Zombie Movie Posters of All Time

I've been a fan of zombie movies since before most of the shamblers in a zombie walk were even born, and I also love the art of movie posters. One would justifiably assume that since zombie movies contain some of the most vivid, colorful, emotion provoking images in all of cinema that the posters for these movies would be some of the most interesting amongst all movie posters.

Wrong.

I don't know why, but the zombie genre has spawned some of the most boring, unoriginal, uninteresting movie posters in movie history. George Romero, while making the defining movies of the genre, has spun off what I think are the most boring movie posters (except for one. but more on that later), and Day of the Dead may be the most bland, generic movie poster of all time. 

                               

No, the darkest day of horror the world has ever known was the day someone was either so tired or so distracted that they green lighted this boring piece of shit poster. I actually owned an original rolled copy of this poster at one point in my life. You'd vomit if I told you how little I paid for it in 1993. I vomit that someone had the brainpower to throw it in the garbage.

Why in the world they didn't use this poster designed for the video release, I'll never know. 

So, that's the bad, and trust me, there's no shortage of bad to go around, but let's get right to the good. I've selected five zombie movie posters I've always had a strong reaction to. One I hate, but I acknowledge it's quality and enduring ability to elicit a strong reaction, which is part of what a good movie poster, or work or art, should do. 

                                                 5) Revenge of the Dead 

This is a magnificent poster, and if you're a collector, one you can get an original in great condition for a very reasonable price (think 25-50 dollars). There's just one problem: nothing you see in this poster even remotely comes close to happening in this movie. In fact, the movie has almost nothing to do with zombies. It's more of a mystery adventure in France involving something about something like the Priory of Scion but none of that matters because if you insist on seeing zombies in a zombie movie you won't here. That said, if you do like the horror genre, this is a reasonably good movie if you have the patience. 

4) The Gates of Hell

Okay, so this movie poster is similar to every poster for every Italian zombie movie made in the zombie mania in Italy that followed Dawn of the Dead. I don't care. I like it. Here I must confess a bit of heresy which may get me banned from the zombie community altogether... I don't care for Lucio Fulci's movies. I don't like the misogyny, the cruelty or the stylistic choices. I don't like maggots and creepy crawlers. I don't like ooze and objects slowly inserted into peoples' eye sockets. However, there are two Fulci posters in my top five. 

3) Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

You're right, this poster isn't any great shakes, but it has one property that make it one of my favorites... I own it! Not only do I own it, I own one of the few anyone has anywhere, and I spent a good deal of money to have it professionally framed and oneday I will mount it on the wall of my study when I finally get to the last place I will ever be. This is my favorite zombie movie, as you must know by now because I include it some way or another in any zombie list I make, and another poster where you're nor going to get much idea about what the movie is about by looking at it. 

2) Zombie

Yuck. I simultaneously hate and acknowledge the enduring power of this iconic image. The text is great. Direct, blunt, and accurate. We're going to eat your ass. The color is bold and well-chosen. It has a stark, grotesque power that is perfect for the movie it heralds. Well done. I still dislike Fulci.

1) Dawn of the Dead

It is entirely fitting that the best zombie movie of all time should also have the best poster. A raving success of design. A combination of great design and the most quoted line of dialogue from any zombie movie ever. A movie poster I also purchased for $25 dollars original and rolled in mint condition in 1993, but no longer possess due to move after move after move. It's heartbreaking what you lose in life, but it's all part of getting to the place you are meant to be. Maybe I'll be re-united with this poster eventually. 

Few things in life will be remembered more fondly by me than Zombie Night at Castaways. After twelve years schlepping drinks in other peoples' bars I finally got a chance to run my own, and the first thing I insisted on was screening zombie movies. The first night we had I think eight people, but by the summer of 2006 we had over 200 people showing up to watch Slither, Shawn of the Dead, then we started slipping in Hard Rock Zombies, Wild Zero, Troll 2, and movies like The Stuff. Andrew Davis designed this poster and to me it will always be one of the great things no one can take away. 

I'm curious to know what zombie movie posters strike other peoples' fancy. Aesthetics are such a personal matter I realize everyone has their own tastes. These are just mine, and like I said, one of these I wouldn't even allow in my study. While you're here you might as well take a look at a couple other zombie events I created The 2012 Zombie Academy Awards and My Top Ten Zombie Movies You Might Not Have Seen. As always, thank you for stopping by, zombie fans, and feel free to link, share, or otherwise just take whatever you want, but please give me a credit. 

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