Showroom Cinema: Celluloid Screams

As well as hosting a film season, Showroom cinema is also holding an exhibition of alternative horror film posters, created by local artists and inspired by horror films shown previously as part of the Celluloid Screams film season.

The exhibition isn't too big - it only lines the walls of the foyer as you walk in, but the works create a nice collection of different techniques and styles as well as interpretations to the horror genre. While I wasn't a fan of some of the works, in particular a poster for Eraserhead by an artist that had never seen the film but wanted to design a poster anyway based on material they had seen. The poster itself was ok, but I had a problem with him having not actually seen the film, especially as the works were fan made. A film poster should be about communicating the concept of the film in one image, but surely this is harder if you've never seen the film?! But there were quite a few that I did like, which are shown below.

Nicola Stuart

 I loved this piece by Stuart because of the use of layers, which created a great sense of depth and the emphasis on a hand made style, influenced perhaps almost solely by the film. It was really nice to hear just how much she enjoyed the animation in the film and how the film had affected her life so much that she had a connection to it.

Mute

I've never seen The Evil Dead, but I liked this poster because again the artist took what they liked about the film and transferred it to their fan poster, making it their own personal work or love letter to the film. Mute went for the "home-made, low budget" look with the 'new' thrown in as well and I think it works well, as the line drawings and the etching style lines create a simple poster, that's still graphically strong and engaging, while looking reminiscient of the 80s.

Lisa O'Hara

Unfortunately the photo of this piece isn't very good due to the glare of the window in front of it, but the focus of the image, the 'Husky' can still be seen. I haven't seen The Thing, but I loved the sketchy, modern look of this poster that's coupled with bright colours, to create an 80s feel, that I suppose juxtaposes the storyline of the film which is set in a ice station and involves lots of people getting killed. The distortion on the Husky looks great, giving it real energy and menance. Plus the artist again related this poster to her experience of the film, which was originally cut down by her Dad so that she could watch it when she was young, but she was left with a lot of questions, like what happens to the Huskies? So the prominence of the Husky in the composition ties in nicely to this.

In the exhibition I found that the most personal pieces connected not only to me but to the source material the best as you could see the passion and love that they had for that film. These pieces were quite inspirational to see, but other pieces were quite bland. It wasn't that they weren't well implemented, I think it was just that you couldn't see any part of them in their work that left me unengaged. If anything this made me think how boring a lot of promotional posters for films can be now a days, but also how even professional posters can advertise a film effectively and have to meet the approval of a client, but still be more exciting to look at and contain more of the artist's personality then some of the posters on show in this exhibition.

Overall, it was a mixed exhibition with some works that simply left me cold and others which ignited a passion to re-watch the film featured in the poster or for design. You don't need to have seen all of the films to get the posters, I certainly hadn't seen every film, but you can still appreciate the techniques and styles of the artists. I think because they were individual works by different artists, it would have been impossible to create a collection where all the works and styles appealed to me, but I really enjoyed this mini exhibition when leaving the cinema. 

Celluloid Screams: Paper Cuts - Alternative Horror Poster Art is on at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield until the end of October.