Midnight Buffet

By Kyle McCoy

Movie posters used to be as creative and original as movies themselves.  A good poster can come in a few different forms, but usually they all convey a certain aesthetic.  Be it revealing the plot, showing off the film's stars or just creating a single, memorable image (usually to be the case with "teasers"), a poster is often the first impression the audience will take away from the movie.  Unfortunately, Drew Struzans don't grow on trees and, thanks to modern day computers, any photoshop rookie thinks they can slap a legitimate Hollywood poster together. 

So, let us dive into last year's trash bin and gawk at The Five Worst Movie Posters of 2011! 

Okay, we just started and I'm already baffled.  What is happening here?  Despite being a generic action-movie poster, this appears even more half-baked than usual.  Is he sliding down a building of broken glass?  Using a BARE HAND to guide himself?  It's like they took a snapshot of him breakdancing and photoshopped a gun in his hand.  Nice costume too...jeans and a t-shirt?  Uninspired.  "Should we throw in a helicopter?  Sure, why not.."

I remember when these posters came out and half the people that saw them were sure they must be fan-made.  As others have said, the silhouette idea is cool enough, but who thought they had to fade in the ghostly face of James McAvoy? Unless it's a comedy, your teaser poster should not have people laughing.  Is Patrick Stewart playing Scrooge again and McAvoy is the ghost of his Christmas crotch?

Yeah, it's one of those holiday movie posters that tries to fit in any many stars as possible.  I guess I understand the thinking behind this.  The folks back home see the poster, which doesn't reveal much about the movie but it has so-and-so (who they're a big fan of) so they'll go check it out!  With a whopping 7% on Rotten Tomatoes, I doubt it was worth it.  I just hate these posters that look like bad yearbook pages.

Congratulations, Adam Sandler!  We have a tie!  While it was bad enough that the American public was subjected to Jack and Jill, the Spanish public had it even worse with their poster featuring Sandler in drag riding a jet ski front and center.  
On to "Just Go With It"...(who names these movies?)  Jennifer Aniston looks about as excited as we are.  'Just go with it' must have been the thing Sandler had to keep telling everyone else on set.

Yep.  I know.

Tyler Perry did some posters parodying some much more popular movies including True Grit, The Godfather etc... But this take on The Black Swan is so wrong, so bad, so downright spooky that it had to be the worst poster of 2011.  Not only do I not want to see the movie, I'm not sure I want to see ever again.   Let's wash our eyes clean with a picture of treasure!

Much better.