Best and Worst DVD Cover Art

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Worst :



Great movie - horrible dvd art : I mean the movie is one of the visually best , who oversaw this DVD cover ?

LOL - it's like they were trying to make a knock-off of the city of god DVD (again another visually brilliant movie)
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The People's Republic of Clogher
Best or worst? You decide...

I'm betting you'll know what I think.



I found this at the bottom of a box recently (I have it on VHS cassette ) and was immediately transported back to my hormonally supercharged days in the mid 80s. The film, obviously enough I suppose, looks nothing like the rather racy cover (common practise with low budget Fantasy videos) but I've kept is because of one interesting feature - it stars the poor girl who befriended Phil Spector, Lana Clarkson.

She was a fine lookin' woman.
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Worse: Frankenstein's Bloody Nightmare




You're a Genius all the time
The Criterion Collection Brazil cover gets my vote for the best. And it's not even close. My old roomate owned a huge framed poster of it - The single most beautiful thing I have ever seen. This picture does not do it justice.




You ready? You look ready.
Blade Runner has the best cover ever. Nuff said.

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Sci-Fi-Guy's Avatar
Beware The Probe!


It was simply basic back then and I've noticed over the years since it has been copied a hell of alot by dozens of thriller movies with teenagers starring in them.
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Fear the Probe!



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
It's certainly my fave movie visuals, let alone musical score, so I guess I'll agree for now.
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Welcome to the human race...
I'll limit my choices to Region 4 DVDs...

I've probably seen worse than this, but I've got to give props to the Dazed and Confused artwork.



Milla Jovovich doesn't deserve to be on the cover of Dazed.

Can't think of a best.
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Criterion has been doing great stuff for years, but some of my favorites among them are...








Apart from Criterion, generally what I like are DVD covers that use or slightly modify original movie poster art. Warner Brothers has been EXCELLENT about this in recent years. Just a few examples...



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As for the worst, it's the opposite of that: when they ditch the original movie poster for the dreaded "floating heads" of a key star or two or even worse throw some cheap-ass generic thing on there that doesn't even clue you in to what movie it's supposed to be. For the first, check out Open Range. It had a pretty cool poster, but obviously some genius in the marketing department decided a stock shot of some galloping horses being haunted by the floating heads of the film's three biggest stars would be a whale of a lot better. What the fart?



Or a modern classic like An American Werewolf in London that had a memorable poster only to be replaced by a floating head of a special effect against a generic blue filtered London skyline. THAT was a good idea.



Or where they ALMOST decide to use the original poster concept...but then chicken out and screw it up by imposing floating heads, like for David Fincher's Zodiac. How totally unnecessary.




As for an example of a cheap-ass stock photo from some service that gives you no clue what it even is other than in it's most generic sense, I give you the DVD for the 1956 Western The Proud Ones. Now the people who might actually be interested in purchasing or renting this movie are exactly the same people who would appreciate knowing that Robert Ryan, Virginia Mayo, Walter Brennan and Jeffrey Hunter are in it. Instead they've tried to keep it totally generic, I assume so that a thirteen-year-old who really liked the 3:10 to Yuma re-make and thinks Kurt Russell totally should have gotten the Oscar for Tombstone might accidentally rent The Proud Ones...which almost surely they will hate. What a great trick! Those who want to watch it may pass it up, and those who have no use for it may pick it up on a whim. Terrific.




Originally Posted by meatwadsprite
Worst :



Great movie - horrible dvd art : I mean the movie is one of the visually best , who oversaw this DVD cover ?
Ummmmm, that's the exact same image as the movie poster there, genius. In fact, what you've linked to is the poster and not the DVD at all, which used the same concept and two images but slightly altered (as in it doesn't list all the credits like the poster does, nor does it use the same review quotes).




As always, you are right on target.



Aye boy don't spit in my drink!
I agree with Holden about how Criterion puts out some of the best DVD covers around. Here are a few more of my favorites of theirs.






And to kind of even it out, here are a few Criterion covers I was not particularly fond of. That goes double for the Salo cover, which is just God awful in my opinion.




Here is one of my favorites...




You're a Genius all the time
Can anyone tell me why the Criterion Collection (a self-proclaimed "series of important classic and contemporary films") has done not one, not four, but two transfers of Michael Bay movies?