Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Tim Palen: Bringing Beauty to Gore

For those who don’t know the name, Tim Palen is the master of the horror poster. Actually he creates some pretty outstanding work in general, but he’s particularly good at horror movie posters. He’s also the Co-President of Marketing over at Lionsgate.

hostel2 Want some examples of his work? How this controversial yet stunning piece?

This poster was only used for foreign cinemas. I think it’s one of the best posters I’ve ever seen. It sums up the film perfectly. You see this poster and you know there’s gonna be nudity and there’s gonna be gore, but the poster itself is elegant and simple.

saw3bloodb Combine that with his marketing genius and you get this (left). Again, simple but effective, and with the added bonus of containing a little piece of Jigsaw within. That’s right, the deep red of the image was made by mixing the ink with some of Tobin Bell’s blood (the first 1000). The posters were then sold and the proceeds donated to Red Cross. So many kinds of awesome.

Palen has released a book called Guts: Behind the Screams Photography. The images are outstanding. Especially the one titled Eli Roth has the Biggest Dick in Hollywood (work unfriendly).

His website (www.timpalen.com) showcases some of his other work (portraits, etc) as well as his movie posters.

I like this one :)

eli_roth

1 comment:

  1. That is really interesting. I never thought about movie posters as an art form. But you are right - those images are compelling.

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