Movie posters, for the longest time, were one of the most important aspects of a film's marketing. But in today's modern era, everyone just heads to YouTube for the latest trailers, leaving posters on the back-burner. However, in the dark days before the internet, these posters were one of the biggest advertisements a film could get. It's easy to forget that, for a long while, not everyone had televisions in their homes. Going back even further, the only place one could even see a trailer was at the movie theaters themselves. Movie posters, on the other hand, could be hung around town or printed in a newspaper relatively easily.
Horror as a film genre has evolved over the years as well, just like movie posters: from the black-and-white thrillers of the '30s, to giant monsters of the '50s, to the B-movie slashers of the '80s. What began as quiet, slowly-paced monster stories have evolved into big-budget gore-fests, and people love horror movies more than ever. Of course, movie posters evolved to fit the films, but that being said, horror posters tend to stand out from other genres. There's an incredible diversity to these posters. While science fiction and action movie posters tend to look the same, browsing through horror movie posters is like flipping through an art book. Regardless of personal taste, there has been some amazing artwork attached to these movies throughout the years.
So, from the height of the Universal monster mash to present-day's dark and gritty horror: this is the evolution of the horror movie poster.
Photo: Columbia Pictures
