Movie Poster Comparison Quest

The two movie posters, which I chose to use for the “Movie Poster Comparison” Quest in the 3D Game Lab for my Humanities 101 course, were the poster for the 1974 release of the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre and of the 2006 movie release of Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Beginning.

            The poster for the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, which was first released on October 1, 1974 in the United States, is a very colorful poster, which depicts a psychotic chainsaw and facemask made of human flesh wilding male serial killer who possibly focuses on beautiful young women as his victim of choice.

            The poster has what appears to be a young woman who is being hanged by a rope from some sort of wooden structure. The woman appears to be attempting to use both of her hands to try and free herself before the killer is able to dismember her with the chainsaw, which he is holding in his left hand. The facemask, which the killer is wearing in the poster, appears to have stitching around the edges of it and holes cut out of it so that he can see out of the mask. The stitching and color of the mask gives the impression that the mask was possibly made of human skin cut from the body of one of his prior victims.

            There is very large and colorful font used in this poster to capture the attention of the audience. The wording of the poster provides a very basic yet fairly detailed description of the films’ plot. The main text on the poster states, “Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?” gives the impression that some of the killer’s victims will survive the ordeal but may be missing limbs or other parts of their bodies.

            The poster also indicates through some of its text that the events, which occur during the film, were based on real life events and that the movie is made with such detail that it will also feel as much of reality as the events, which occur during it. To me, the graphics and design of the poster show that the film was made on a low budget even for the time period, which it was released.

            The second poster is for the film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-The Beginning that was released on October 6, 2006 some 32 years after the release of the original film and poster. The poster for the 2006 film release is a much visually darker poster than the poster for the original movie. I believe that the reasoning behind having his poster designed with darker colors and a darker theme than the original poster is because society today in the United States portrays fear and gruesome violence as being very dark themed.

            I believe a reason that society sees fear and violence this way is because of how the media has portrayed serial killers and other extremely fearful films and stories in the recent past. Some examples of this are the Hannibal Lecter horror movie series based on a cannibal serial killer portrayed mostly by actor Anthony Hopkins. Many of the horrifying scenes of these movies were set in dark locations such as in the movie The Silence of the Lambs where towards the end of the film a female Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agent was searching inside of a very dark house for the serial killer who was without her knowledge stalking her through the house using a pair of night vision goggles. Other thriller movies in recent history such as the Scream series, Paranormal Activity series and Saw series are also mainly set in dark locations during the most horrifying scenes of each movie.

            There is very little writing on this poster release and because of this, it is much more difficult to figure out the main plot of the film just by looking at the movie poster. However, I do believe that the intended audience for this film which is mostly the younger generation is drawn more to the visual effects of a movie poster than what they are to the writing of a movie poster, leading the poster designers to make the newer poster much more visually interesting and appealing than the poster was for the original film release in 1974.

            The poster for the 2006 film release also gives the impression from reading what little texts are on it, that the film is based solely on the killers uprising to his horrific and brutal killings. Like the poster for the original film, the killer on this poster also appears to be wearing a facemask possibly made of either human flesh or possibly has a dismembered face. The Killer is also a male subject and like the original film’s poster, is holding a chainsaw. Unlike the original poster, there is not anything about this poster, which gives the impression that the events, which occur during the film, were based on true-life events from our history.