It’s fitting that this, the twentieth installment of “Gives Me Chills,” should feature a DVD cover which exemplifies so many design errors all at once.
(You may need to click through to the larger version to fully appreciate it.)
- Poor photo with on-camera flash? Check.
- Distorted aspect ratio of said photo? Check.
- Photo of too small a resolution blown up and used anyway? Check.
- Clashing background? Check.
- Sloppy/skill-free PhotoShopping to integrate the main image with the background? Check.
- Title in all-caps in a font that should never be used all-caps? Check.
- Almost unreadable text all over the cover? Check.
- Labeled “Special Edition” even though the only thing “special” about this DVD is that someone finally decided to rescue this movie from VHS obscurity? Check.
- Lens flare just cuz? Check.
In case you’re wondering if the cover accurate represents the contents, here’s the description from Amazon:
Shawn, a skeleton freak philosopher and his drug induced zombie henchmen rule the bowels of the sphinx guarded “”Unknown Cemetery””. As an outcast cult leader Shawn is always on the lookout for students to educate into the arts of mental expansion. Four naive college kids find their way into the domain of the graveyard weirdos and their playground of occult teaching methods including forced opium smoking, sexual deviancy, hypnotic anti-religious dialog and Tarot. Dark Night of the Soul delivers in originality with heavy occult overtones, eerie atmosphere, drug usage and nudity.
Pretty accurate, I’d say.
#1 by Naomi on December 6, 2011 - 11:43 am
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Backhanded compliment from the star of Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things? Check.
#2 by DamonD on December 8, 2011 - 8:14 am
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Ah right. Shame, I was rather hoping there was a review magazine out there actually called “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Deranged and Cat People.”
#3 by Naomi on December 8, 2011 - 10:38 am
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It has a very, very niche market.
#4 by Ericb on December 6, 2011 - 1:14 pm
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Love some of the adjectives used in the blurb: a “pleasant amount of nudity”? “whacky torture scenes”?
#5 by RogerBW on December 6, 2011 - 1:50 pm
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At least one font too many, and several of them look like the standard fonts that come with Windows: check.
Mismatched quotation marks: check.
#6 by E on December 6, 2011 - 3:39 pm
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But it “delivers in originality.”
#7 by Read MacGuirtose on December 7, 2011 - 12:50 am
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From the Trivia on the film’s IMDb page:
“Shot on Beltane on the grounds of a sacred Catholic monastery, the cast and crew endured bizarre wind and rain that appeared and disappeared and a violent hail storm the nearly demolished the set on the final night of filming.”
I think the most telltale aspect of this anecdote is that the film was apparently shot in a single day. That’s not exactly a mark of quality.
(Of course, technically what the sentence says is that the cast and crew were shot on Beltane, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what was meant. Though it might have been better if they were.)
#8 by The Rev. on December 7, 2011 - 10:10 am
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It looks like an ad for your local Hallowe’en costume shop. “Great selection! Big savings! Come on down to Big Bob’s Costume Barn! Prices so low, you’ll SCREAM!!”