Have you seen the new Street Fighter movie poster? Does it make you want to see the movie? No – we thought not. But it comes from a rich heritage of really rubbish SF, fantasy and film posters. Welcome to a gallery of naff images, cringey tag lines and suspect skills with photoShop (wait ’till you see the one for Bug!)
Let’s be frank. It’s a terrible poster. Bad enough if you don’t know Street Fighter (in which case it’s a mystifyingly ham-fisted amalgam of tiny logo, badly PhotoShopped fizzogs and uninspiring tag line) but downright pitiful if you do – can you work who’s who from the game? (Actually, if you can, it’s even more dispiriting – the guy at the top is Bison? Oh puh-leaze). Wonder if Kristin Kreuk’s agent was informed that her eyes were going to be transformed into surrogate Vega nipples?
But bad posters are nothing new. There was a time, in the heyday of ’40s and ’50s monster movies, when they were an artform in themselves. But they had a certain charm, at least. You can love them in the same way as you can love the cheesy movies they’re valiantly trying to champion. Over the next few pages, however, we’re going to look at some unforgivable movie posters – some from blockbusters and recent releases – that really should have known better. These aren’t lurid and tacky forgotten counter-culture masterpieces, they’re just a bit rubbish in some way or another. Either they repulse you, bore you or simply give you the totally wrong impression of the film they’re touting.
