Details
The image
A creature drawn at the scale of a doorway, teeth forward, with human figures arranged around it in attitudes of escape. The lettering is loud and slightly crooked, the colour is saturated and the whole sheet is built to be read from across a cinema foyer.
Where it comes from
The drive-in era of the late 1950s produced a whole genre of posters where the animal was enormous, the production was cheap and the promise was a scare that cost nothing to deliver. These sheets were printed fast and pasted over and their visual grammar, low angle, exaggerated scale, blunt type, became one of the most recognisable languages in film advertising.
On the wall
It belongs where a room can take a joke: a studio, a hallway, a kitchen with strong colour, a teenager’s room. Because the image is loud and slightly ridiculous, it needs space. At a large size it becomes a graphic statement; at a small one it reads like a comic panel.
In company
Pairs well with other film posters and with industrial furniture. In a group it should be the loudest piece. Avoid pale, formal interiors where the kitsch stops being funny and starts being a stain. The rest of the Vintage collection holds pieces from the same years and the same printing habits.
