We all can appreciate good box tops,whether it's a photo still from the movie or some well rendered art.But on the opposite end of the spectrum,how about some truly awful box art? My candidate for the worst goes to the following:



To me the vampire looks like Frank Sinatra with a really awful make-up job.

I quite agree with you Douglas, it seems the cheaper the budget of the film, the shoddier 8mm box covers, perhaps there just wasn't much in the way of stills to work from, and I doubt the 8mm distributor had a budget to take stills from their 'work print'. Also there were the 'penny pinching' distributors like Walton, who would (especially with there 'Tom & Jerry' cartoons) employ someone to re-draw a still for a front cover, and 9 times out of 10 the representations of 'Cat & Mouse' looked nothing like the real thing, this was done to save money, as the images of 'Tom & Jerry' are copyrighted, and an additional fee would have been asked for.

Doug,
That is one...shall we say...uninspired...piece of artwork! I'll have to see what I have in my collection to add to this conversation.
BTW, that does look a bit like Frank Sinatra when he was having heroin withdrawals on "The Man With the Golden Arm"!

Totally agree Douglas, it is a horrible, for all the wrong reasons, piece of artwork and it does look like 'Ol Blue eyes. There was another
one done for the same film that does capture a true rendition of Polselli's vampire in the film, for once a nice cover. I know I'll get a hard
time, but I always thought the Walton box drawn covers very poor, the photo boxes were nice, but the drawn ones let down a company known for quality in its releases.

Aside from the beautiful Disney Feature cover art that was enforced upon Derann by Disney themselves apparently, I was never over impressed with the other feature artwork from the later Derann releases.

Often just stencils in two colours only, for the likes of Terminator or even Calamity Jane for example....you'd think a splash of vibrant colour wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility for films of this quality.

That's the worse artwork I have ever seen.

I agree Andrew, although some of their releases had no artwork at all, "Fearless Vampire Killers" was just a generic Derann 4x600 box.
Some of the stuff that was "clagged" onto the boxes I suppose we must be grateful if we got a plain box, it was so bad, a case of "for what we are about to receive".

Really awful artwork, but maybe they got it perfectly right in this instance, in which the contents is equally awful no doubt. The artwork that annoys me, is that which
show's a full colour picture and the contents is actually black and white. I think Disney in derann's case got it right, put an excellent colour image on the front of the box
which represents very well what's inside, very much a subliminal thing, that works .

Well the old saying, "Never judge a book by its cover", was never more apt, the film is quite a stylish B/W Italian gothic horror from the 60's, which shied away from the handsome nobleman biting necks, instead the vampire is a repulsive creation, portrayed on a far better box cover that must have been a redo and is the more common of the two, the French company, Bd Cine .com have a picture on their lists in the horror section The cover Douglas has would have made a great sleeve for the Sinatra single, "I've Got You Under my Skin"

But none surpasses Real and Topfilm's cover ugliness

You have any to show us? I never seen those

The second is actually an art masterpiece in relation to the others! The first is simply,ugly! The third is weirdly bad,creating exactly the opposite impression of the gentle Parrotsville humor and the fourth,simply horrific,ideal for a "Return of the Zombie Leghorn" type of movie.

Those last two Panayotis would send anyone to bed with nightmares, its just a shame "Foggy" can't sue 'em, it certainly is not his best
side and nothing like his passport photo!

You do make me chuckle Hugh, you're like a breath of fresh air on here,you really are!

I've just taken another look at Douglas's U.A. film art again.
What a bollicking mess!
The artist must have gone to Stevie Wonder world of art classes!

I didn't think the Tarzan picture too bad, and the 2nd does come very close to the Warner Bros originals. No comment on the last two.

Tarzan looks a bit stiff and not all natural. Something feels a bit weird. Love to see them here though. Bit of fun those. And those Walton Tom &Jerry's mentioned are awful too

Yeah I've got a load of T&J s to post on the picture gallery section both Walton and Derann. Just got to dig em all out to photograph them.

Not the best artwork in the world but still good to use if one happens to arrive at your door only in a plain white box as is often the case all these years on from when they were originally made.

Here we have a green werewolf and a witch that looks like Debi Mazar.I guess old wolfie got his hair dyes mixed up and and wound up with green fur.We told him to let a professional stylist handle it but he wouldn't listen.

Andrew, what do you think happened to the original boxes?

Robert, if the pictures on them resemble what has gone before, I would say it is to Andrew's advantage they remain lost.

I am sorry Robert, i am not sure what you mean? What happened to which boxes?

I meant, what happened to the original boxes, so now they come to you in plain white, and you have to search for original artwork.

Ah yes sorry Robert, i was having a blonde moment there ha ha. Ah yes, I just find that many are posted out nowadays in brand new plain boxes as the originals are so very tatty. I don't mind so long as I can always find the original artwork for the film to give me a base from which to begin.