From Zombos' Closet

Double Bill Pressbook: The Monster That Challenged the World and The Vampire

The design of the caterpillar-like creature in The Monster That Challenged the World is on my shortlist of favorite monsters of the 1950s. Although the script resorts to the usual 1950s woman in peril and is totally helpless until the man arrives but he gets into trouble so she screams a lot until more help arrives scenario, it's still a worthy B Movie staple. This pressbook shows the fantastic poster art and fun ballyhoo used for promoting this double bill of "blood-curdling monsters of the age!"

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things Theater Giveaways

Here are two theater giveaways used for promoting Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things: a Graveyard Goodies menu and the Interment Insurance Company Policy. They spared no expense in the layout and printing (and I do mean no expense at all by the look of them). 

Pressbook: They're Coming to Get You

I think this movie is about the IRS. What do you think? Or maybe it's just All the Colors of the Dark (1972)?

Double Bill Pressbook: The Incredible Petrified World and Teenage Zombies

So, maybe it's me, but...what does a gorilla have to do with Teenage Zombies? 

UK Pressbook: Fear in the Night (1972)

Here's the UK pressbook for Hammer's Fear in the Night, with Peter Cushing, Ralph Bates, Judy Geeson, and Joan Collins. I like Peter Cushing's comment in the Press Features that he wanted to be a cowboy like Tom Mix.

Pressbook: Jungle Captive (1945)

Long time fiend from Zombos' Closet, Tony Rivers, often sighted prowling around the Classic Horror Film Board, strikes once again, with his pressbook scans for Jungle Captive, with Vicky Lane as the Ape Woman. The lobby ballyhoo and poster cut-outs must have been awesome to see.

UK Pressbook: Demons of the Mind (1972)

The UK pressbooks for horror and terror movies are normally so neat and proper, you'd expect a cup of tea being sipped while perusing them. Here's the pressbook for Hammer's Demons of the Mind, filled with depravity, incest, and torture. Have a scone on me.

German Pressbook: Der 4D Mann

Having said that the German pressbooks I've seen are usually one big sheet fold-outs, of course I catch this one for 4D Man (1959) tumbling out of the closet. It's one long, narrow sheet that unfolds. Very stylish.

German Pressbook: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

Here's a German pressbook for Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. The German pressbooks I've seen so far are usually a one sheet fold-out with a splendid scene-rich centerfold. They also include the ad mats on cheap pulp paper to be cut out and used in newspapers.

Pressbook: The Rebel Set (1959)

Oh, those wild beatniks. Wild, wild, wild. Could never get the hang of those bongos, though. Rhythm's just not my bag, man. But I dug the tights the women wore. Slinky and sexy. One of the best horror movies with a beatnik atmosphere is A Bucket of Blood. Sherlock Holmes once quipped about "art in the blood" when discussing Mycroft, but A Bucket of Blood posits blood-in-the-art for a nice kick in the jive. A bucket's worth, more or less.

UK Pressbook: Earth vs. The Flying Saucers

A very enjoyable movie with great Harryhausen special effects. A monsterkid classic. The art direction on a budget for Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956) is exemplary. From the weird, featureless alien survival suits to the rotating flying saucers, and let's not forget that fantastic warbling alien voice, it's still fun to watch.  Here's the UK pressbook for it.

Movie Pressbook: Unidentified Flying Objects (1956)

The exploitation angle is pushed hard in this pressbook for Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers. That pilot's singular  expression, used in the poster art, is so direct, so embracing of suspense, that it's quite a teaser for seeing the move. If it wasn't the cold war fear, it was fear of alien invaders that sipped around the coffee tables of 1950s/1960s suburbia and metropolises.