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Old 1st June 2010, 11:34 PM
TheOwlsAreNotWhatTheySeem's Avatar
TheOwlsAreNotWhatTheySeem TheOwlsAreNotWhatTheySeem is offline
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Default Inferno - The Artwork

Hope its ok to start a new thread on just this since the old thread is closed? I'm really interested in horror artwork!

It was interesting to read people's reactions to the cover artwork.


I love the design! (And for what it's worth, I'm speaking as a painfully PC feminist )

However, I can understand people saying it isn't appropriate to the film. I haven't seen the film (I've been waiting for a DVD for years), but obviously its not really Argento's style. There are a lot of different issues here.

For one thing, these Arrow horror DVDs are totally playing on the great horror tradition of exploitation - i.e. a film's marketing emphasising and exaggerating sex and gore. Its mainly basing its designs on 80s video nasties - and they frequently portrayed scenes that didn't even occur. This design is lurid, apparently makes little sense in relation to the film, gratuitously violent, and needlessly sexualised - great!

Maybe it is inappropriate for this particular film, but it I guess it would create a marketing problem for Arrow to do this as separate to their current white-box series (and the classic Inferno artwork would be undermined by the white border anyway). They must want to capitalise on the interest and 'brand identity' (ugh) already created by the other DVDs, but maybe it would have been best to do this differently - its hard to imagine 'Suspiria' with anything other than its classic poster as a cover - and again, a retro 80s VHS white border type design would wreck that. I guess Argento is much more arthouse than exploitation, and maybe the artwork should reflect that.

KRW said: "I didnt think I'd see covers like that in 2010. It's like Benny Hill directed a horror movie."

I totally disagree - Benny Hill was dodgy because of the context in which it consistently portrayed women (though it was probably too ridiculous to seem seriously sexist!). This is just one picture that emphasises a woman's ass. Maybe its a little too... 'emphasised' by the artist, and overall a little too cartoonish - I wouldn't put it on my living room wall - but I do have up a poster for 'Lost in Translation' which is basically just a close-up of Scarlett Johannson's ass - and that is considered an artistic, iconic poster! As Nigel Tufnel said: "What's wrong with being sexy?"

Now feel free to mock my ridiculous over-analysing!
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