Monday, April 14, 2008

Four Poster Bad, Part 4

OK, let's get right into it. First off is Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. Y'know, the titular character had been around for over a hundred years when this flick was made; you'd think they'd get it right by now. This was the sequel to King Solomon's Mines, and I'd like to think Solomon would've had the wisdom to cut this turkey in half (and no one would have intervened). Wasn't Chamberlain getting a little long in the tooth to capitalize on the Indiana Jones craze by this time? The poster is just as craptastic as the film. Check out the image of...uh...I guess it's supposed to be Sharon Stone, but it could just as easily be Shelly Long, Audrey Landers, Estelle Getty, hell, I dunno. There's also the Arab-looking fellow who doesn't seem to know how to wield a knife (careful there, Farhat, you're gonna lose a digit!). And who are the guys at the bottom in the hoods and skirts? Half Klansmen, half 60s gogo dancers? The best part, though, is on the middle right. See him? It's Richard Simmons! He's making the gogo klansmen sweat to the oldies! Go, Richard, go!




Next up we have Backfire. And before you ask, no, I don't remember this movie either. It apparently stars Keith Carradine and Karen Allen, and the plot is listed on the Internet Movie Database thusly: " A shell shocked Vietnam Vet is driven over the brink by his greedy wife and her boyfriend." Ah, I see. This is what is usually referred to by cinema devotees by the technical term "the kind of movie Hickman won't bother watching." I think the main question viewers of the poster probably found themselves asking was "who the hell's legs are those?" They're clearly not Karen Allen's (unless she grew a foot for the movie), and presumably they're not Keith Carradine's (although it's possible, due to genetics; not too many folks know that John Carradine had a fine set of gams and was one of the original Radio City Music Hall Rockettes). It appears that the young lady in question here is also going commando, which I guess is supposed to be titillating, but it just keeps making me think about yeast infections.



Ahem. Blue Monkey."While working in a greenhouse, a man receives an insect bite after touching an exotic plant. Immediately, he falls ill and is taken to an emergency room where the doctors diagnose him as suffering from an unknown bacteria, and a strange parasite which emerges from his mouth as a large slimy wormlike creature. Soon, there are more cases of bacterial infection, but the more immediate problem for the hospital is the wormlike creature which after accidental exposure to a genetic growth stimulant grows to monstrous proportions and starts a reign of terror and bloodshed in the hospitals abandoned wing."
...

Where the hell is the blue monkey???

And why does the head on the poster look like some kind of animatronic thing you'd see at Chuck E. Cheese??? And what are those things on the side of his head??? Have his mutton chops gone rogue???

I'm fairly sure Blue Monkey is a flavor of slushy.



Finally we have Creepozoids (and if you have creepozoids, I'd recommend Tuck's Medicated Pads). Well, the poster seems to be attempting to make this flick look like an Alien rip-off, which is what it is. The monster is really, really badly painted, though, so it COULD be the monster from Alien, or it could be...um...Sharon Stone, Shelly Long, Audrey Landers, Estelle Getty, I dunno. It really doesn't even look like it's on the same plane of existence as the human figures, like it was cut out of a different poster and pasted on as an afterthought. To be fair, though, the humans are not exactly Maxfield Parrish-level, either. Check out the macho dude, protecting the ladies by heaving his pecs at the monster. And the woman in the center is so frightened that her buttons have, in a Casper cartoon fashion, jumped up, screamed, and left her shirt. Most disturbing is the prone woman, however, who disregards the monster entirely in favor of an attempt to suckle at her homegirl's now exposed bosom. Hey, lady, I like a glass of milk as much as the next guy, but there's a time and place for everything.


Tune in next time for more Madison Avenue garbage that didn't put a single ass in a seat.

1 comment:

Snorii said...

Wow, that last one especially is just horrid.