"Creepers" poster art

The Skeletal Spotlight shines this time on:

The "Creepers" video release poster
(Click on image to enlarge.)

"Have some bugs, they're rich in protein... mostly mine!"

This is the 1986 promo poster advertising the VHS video debut of Dario Argento's "Creepers," which was the American name of the edited version of "Phenomena." Since I worked in radio, I was able to get on a couple of video release company lists as a reviewer... so they sent me promo material! That was sweet. Between that and getting in good with the local Entertainment Editor at the local newspaper, who gave me their no-longer-needed press kits, I was getting some good stuff. One of the best items was a specially-produced kit for James Cameron's "The Abyss," which was a notebook-bound slick book of stills, behind-the-scenes pics and info, all in a special slipcase. Classy.

I liked "Creepers," being as it was my first exposure to Argento's work, and the art is neat in this version of the poster. Another version (pictured to the right) has star Jennifer Connelly's face, but this one depicts half of it eaten away... which does not happen in the movie, but was probably done to make it appeal to the American gorehounds.

Sporting an atmospheric Goblins score, a sleep-walking psychic heroine, foreboding locations and scenery, bloody decapitations, detective work that involves tailing a fly, a dip in a maggot-and-corpse-filled pool, a Poe-inspired straight-razor-swinging chimp, flesh-eating insect swarms, a murderer stalking students in a female school with a staff featuring detachable blades, it has it all.

Here's a great review by a fellow blogger at the Tomb of the Headless Werewolf that renders any attempt I might make a redundant effort.