Welcome to Paper Cuts: Wild Posters from the Private Collection of Tal Zimerman. There are Band-Aids in case you need one. I’m Tal and I work as a professional actor, but my passion is collecting horror-movie posters from all over the globe. On this blog, you will see how film companies used paper to promote their products before the Internet, and in many cases before home video.

I must tell you, the posters won’t all be perfect. Some may bear the scars of traveling from the printing house, to the movie studio, onto the walls or into the lightboxes of theatres, then into the inventory of vendors, and finally to collectors like myself. For many of the posters I have to show you, this process has taken decades. Rest assured, these promotional orphans (promorphans?) now have a good home with me up in Toronto, Canada.

If, like me, you love graphic art and horror films, this is going to be the place to be. Enjoy, and get ready to see some amazing fright-flick posters from around the globe!

NIGHTMARE

a.k.a. NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN (UK)

1981, USA

Poster country of origin: USA

27” x 41”

Possibly the most interesting thing about this one-sheet is that it gives top billing to an FX man. Unless your name began with an “R” and ended with “ay Harryhausen”, rarely did this happen…until Tom Savini ushered in the ’80s gore movement and the monster-maker-as-celebrity. Where this version of the poster exclaimed, “From the man that terrified you in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Friday the 13th’!”, subsequent versions read, “If you were terrified in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ you must see Nightmare!”. The later editions also covered Savini’s credit with a black decal, and some contained different key art altogether. The revised campaign stemmed from Savini’s claim that he did not have significant involvement with the film’s production and that he should not be referenced in its promotion.

Director Romano Scavolini, on the other hand, still maintains that Savini created most of the grisly murders and served as the main effects artist on set. Whatever truth there is to either side’s story, NIGHTMARE still holds a reputation of being among the nastiest of the nasties—if only due to its scarcity (a long-announced DVD release still has yet to transpire).

The distributor, 21st Century Distribution Corporation, was also responsible for releases of THE DEADLY SPAWN, MANHATTAN BABY (a.k.a. EYE OF THE EVIL DEAD), THE SLAYER, SCALPS, CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD, DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS and others before winding up in the hands of Menahem Golan after the latter left Cannon Films. In that incarnation, its titles included Savini’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake and Robert Englund’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

---

Bloody Blogs - PAPER CUTS