Two For Tuesday - Poster Art Appropriation

The original 1963 paperback edition of We Have Always Lived in the Castle features a beautiful cover painting in gouache by William Teason, an artist whose work was widely seen on book covers and movie posters throughout the '60s and '70s. The painting provides a few visual clues about the novel's plot and its teen protagonist Merricat Blackwood, who practices her own personalised form of witchcraft and may or may not have had something to do with the poisoning deaths of her family.

Two of these clues were eliminated in the unsigned bastardization of Teason's painting that appeared on the poster for Mario Bava's SHOCK (1977). Notice how the original artist's signature has also been conveniently cropped from the image. While it's still a powerful image, even with the details altered and washed out, it really doesn't bear much of a resemblance to anything seen in Bava's final feature film.

Just as blatant and inappropriate is this copying of Boris Vallejo's 1979 painting, Vampire's Kiss, which was slightly retooled for Mario Bianchi's sex and horror mash-up, SATAN'S BABY DOLL (1982). Funny how Bianchi's raunch-fest ended up the more demure image.

Below are a couple shots of Michele Soavi's own use of the Vallejo painting in his visually striking second film, THE CHURCH (1989). However, I think this definitely falls more under the category of homage than the poster examples above.

--MW