The Fearless Vampire Killers Poster

The Fearless Vampire Killers (originally-Dance of the Vampires), was made in 1967. It is a comedy-horror classic. It was directed by Roman Polanski and co-written by Gerard Brach. 

The original poster was very basic with a white background with sketchy black drawing of a cartoon vampire towering over two innocent characters.  As it is not obvious to whom the well-known actors in the film are, to attract the target audience they put the starring roles in a medium simple font along the bottom with the co-star in a slightly smaller font.

The title of the film is put into one of the wings of the vampire., followed by the tagline of “OR; pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck”. This gives the poster a less serious feel, to give more of the impression that it is a comedy, rather than mainly horror.  The colour of the title text is yellow. It contrasts with the black sketch behind it. Yellow also its vibrant, so again adds a comedic edge to the poster but is also bright to attract the attention of the audience. Another element I feel adds to the comedy genre, is the typical cobwebs and spiders creeping in the corners of the poster.  The scratchy texture to the sketch adds the element of horror I think to the poster, it is like the typical scratchy music that comes with horror films. The red blood dripping from the vampire’s wings also brings the element of horror.  The border of the poster is scratchy black lines, to complement the image in the centre of the vampire. This helps to draw the audience’s attention to the contents.

The name of the film is in bold, so it stands out to the audience. The font is a typical creepy horror film font, which suggests the genre immediately to the audience. It is the largest font on the page so it is clear to the audience what the name of the film is, and so it stands out as the main point of focus juxtaposed to the other texts on the page. The font of the cast list is in a complementary colour to the orange title which makes the aesthetics attractive to the audience. The tag line is underneath in a smaller font to the main title but in the same font style, which opposes the horror genre against the comedic side of the film to portray the contrasting genres. The most famous names are in a larger font than the co-star because it will attract the audience to go and see something where they are familiar with the actors, and it could give them a brief idea of what the film will be like after knowing what the other actors are in, as the actors are quite genre specific.

The image at the top is of the main vampire killing one of his victims. The conventions that come with typical classic horror films is vampires and bats, which are all included into the poster to stand out as a horror genre. This is the larger image, as it is the most well-known scene in the film. Also it has an attractive women which would stereotypically appeal to the male audience. The female on the front is also probably placed there, as she has the most recognizable face to an audience, as she is the most famous. I like the fact that it is painted and I think it flows better with the cartoon element of the poster. the whole casts characters are painted in a sequence along the bottom, this attracts and audience as it gives them an idea of the interactions between the characters and what to expect from the plot. The character on the left of the poster in the main image, appears to be naked which gives the sense that she is unprotected and vulnerable the male character in the image. The male character in the image has grey skin which shows that he is not human and immediately presents to the audience the character. He is also wearing black with a red cape which has the conventions of evil, darkness, blood which all relate to the element of vampires within the film. His position juxtaposed to the female character is that he is at a higher angle giving the impression that he is more dominant than her. The camera angle is at more of a tilt towards the female character’s side, which gives the impression that we are on her side and we can feel more empathetic towards her.