A Message From The Dude Designs...

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

Ladies and gentlemen, the genius behind many recent great film artworks including the new Exterminator DVD, Tom Hodge (A.K.A. The Dude Designs) has written a little something for all you Cult Labbers.

So without further ado, take it away Tom...

"Hey guys it’s just your friendly neighbourhood dude designs here to say a few words about the thoughts and inspirations behind the artwork for new release of The Exterminator!

So here it is and as you all know I'm sure The Exterminator like Savage Streets is another classic 80's video vigilante genre film, so my initial thought was to create a sort of brother piece to accompany Savage Streets. My aim was to really have fun with the title again (I'm a big fan of these vigilante Death Wish-esque films) so I wanted to and create a historically accurate piece of video art and tackle the design as if it had been briefed to sit on those old VHS store racks alongside Media or Paragon releases.

Like everyone, I knew and really dug the original artwork, but I did feel justified shining a different light on the film as I do remember feeling somewhat disappointed at how many liberties this key art did actually take....THAT'S NOT John Eastland!!! Robert Ginty's great as the Exterminator but he ain't no Arnie, which was kind of the point Steve James is the action man and Roberts this reluctant anti hero who has to take a stand, so expecting to see a buff flame throwing dude just sets the wrong tone. Secondly that flame thrower... WHERE WAS IT! I mean really ?! It turns up for about five seconds during the initial torture scene then it’s never heard of again!!

Now having said all that don't get me wrong, I love totally inaccurate 70's/80's cover art as much as the next man (probably more so because I'm sad like that and have chosen to devote my life to the cause of creative embellishment!!!) The Medusa release of Savage Streets is a great example of this:

Linda Blair looks more like Adrienne Barbeau and they have turned the crossbow into some futuristic looking weapon. Guns usually come off the best in these 80's video covers, I love the way the main character’s gun is always turned into this over the top souped up futuristic cannon for greater titillation (or just that the illustrator didn't really know how the gun actually looked!) just look at Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity and Special Force:

So I jumped on the chance to incorporate this into The Exterminator and had the main focus of the design being Ginty's space age OTT Magnum. I usually like to have a fun fantasy focal point to the design – it breaks up the characters and just injects some action into the proceedings (it prevents the floating head syndrome as well).

I did still want to keep some familiarity to the original key art though for the viewer to have that recognition so I kept the iconic black biker helmet for the main character, then played this off with some more narrative elements of the film like Steve James being jumped and Christopher George as the police dude (next time watch The Exterminator try playing the Detective James Dalton telephone drinking game – it’s crazy how many time this dude is on the phone!!). I then topped the whole thing off with a nice helicopter just because you just need one!!!! Then set all against that classic city backdrop which along with the title design are a homage to another of my favourite 80's video classics Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous, if you spotted it!! I always like to throw in these little random tributes to different video cover designs as it makes it fun when putting the piece together and the little hidden homages are interesting for people to spot, the same way directors do in their films I like to think, I've always said I'm a frustrated director and the film design/illustration work is an outlet to create my own idealised version of the movie I'm working on to paraphrase Graham Humphreys!!!

Well hope you enjoy the film and the new cover adds to your viewing experience, you haven't seen the last of the big guns!!!!!"

- Tom 'The Dude Designs' Hodge

How awesome is that?!

[skankenstoned]

Wow, it sure is nice to hear the background on one of Arrow's best covers (for one of their best releases) as so often people are very quick to bad mouth the efforts of these guest artists without really considering the view point of the artists themselves. As for me, I'm left with the dilema of having to go blu in order to own this fine piece as I'm sure if Arrow do release The Exterminator on dvd I'll have to settle for a cut price ArrowDrome version (which isn't a bad thing, I just miss the nice fat special edition Arrow Video releases and this film is crying out for that special treatment).

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

I've always liked The Dude's covers, and this one is no exception.

It's great to hear about the inspiration and thought process that went into the artwork for The Exterminator, too.