During Fantasia's If They Came From Within panel, director Maurice Devereaux recalled that he used to clip the horror movie ads out of newspapers when he was a young lad. I had to chuckle, as I did the same thing, even dedicating an Archives post to it last winter. Later, I remembered that post was supposed to have been the first of two, and I had yet to do the follow-up. So, here it is. These were taken from the various magazines you get at the theatre to read while you are waiting for the film to start. Maybe some of you remember seeing these during their initial run.
There were also a lot of theatrical posters that changed for their transition to the home video market. Sometimes the reasoning was obvious, sometimes... not so much. You can rollover the images to see their VHS counterparts. Please do, it took me forever to get them to work.
This one seems pretty arbitrary, as putting your bankable star on the cover is as old a practice as film itself.
Same goes for this one. Though Kristy Swanson was still an up-and-comer, Luke Perry had the force of 90210 behind him.
This movie's star was the mysterious character, rather than the person who played him - as Liam Neeson had yet to become the leading man he is today. The VHS poster does a good job of illustrating Sam Raimi's kinetic style, as well.
Rutger Hauer is the centerpiece of both posters, but the VHS also includes the other selling point - the creature designed by Stephen Norrington.
This one has always perplexed me. Why did they remove the spider for the VHS release?
Both are very subtle, but the VHS is far superior in this case I'd say.
Speaking of home video, working at Cockbuster made me privy to a lot of promotional materials, some of which I have posted previously. Here below are clippings from some retail VHS magazines I liberated from there.
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