Blood Voyage

In what appears to be potentially a pun on "Bon Voyage", this movie set out with its initial goal in mind to make you laugh at its title. Not a bad way to grab attention, certainly, but ultimately not something that can keep someone interested for more than the mere chuckle. Either way, this is one of the worst covers I've ever featured, and again because of the artists lack of ability to properly paint a human face that doesn't look like something out of a 5 year olds nightmare.

Released in 1976 and also titled "Nightmare Voyage" - a title which makes more sense but is less entertaining - it follows what is meant to be a pleasure cruise as it slowly becomes a nightmare when murder follows murder on a small ship. With tension mounting, passengers and the crew turn on each other in a desperate attempt to identify the killer. Your standard typical mid 70s thriller film, but set on a boat, basically. Not a terrible premise, certainly, but also not the most engaging. But you know what's even less engaging? This box art.

I mean, okay, it's typical of your everyday bad box design from that time period, but why's the video company get as much space as the title of the feature on the spine? That seems...ridiculous, honestly. And of course, the artwork. My GOD the artwork. This man's proportions are all wrong. Forget the look on his face, because I can't get over his should being stretched to the max. Why's his body mimicking that of a Stretch Armstrong? Nobody's body looks like that! And there's no discernible distinction between any of his flesh, no, it's all just one giant mass of muscle. The only reason you can tell his face isn't part of his abdomen is that it has facial features on it.

This thing is just a goddamned mess.

But not as bad as this poorly Xeroxed dumpster baby, somehow. What the hell happened here? Like, this looks just god awful, honestly. Okay, the font title is way cool, and totally fitting, and they seemed to have found an actual photo of the man who's painted on the previous one, and all in all it should work, but then it has this awful green puke tint splashed all over it. How did this happen?

Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate the tagline at the bottom of the cover, which reads "One is a killer...the rest are going to die."

Yeah...that's kind of how murder works. There's generally one killer and a whole lot of victims. You didn't really need to specify that, thanks. This thing not only looks bad because of the color, it also looks like it was dunked in a bucket of water and then left to dry in the backseat of a hot car. This thing has seen some shit, is what I'm trying to say. In fact, I'd wager that the horror stories this tape could tell us are actually more enthralling then the fake horror story that's on it. I wanna hear the VHS's story.

Somehow you managed to make a worse cover than the first one, which is impressive, because that first one is bad. But the first one - while bad - is so comically bad that it's entertaining, meanwhile this one is just outright bad. So, kudos to you Pan Canadian Videos, for this god awful display of god awfulness.

But that's not all, oh no, we have one more VHS box waiting to take our breath away, either with its beauty or via strangulation, we shall see.

Okay baby, now we're talking.

Thankfully, the third box comes through for us, as it takes all the best aspects of the 2nd, adds some new elements to the mix and creates a totally excellent creation (excellent in the case of these 3 boxes anyway). By adapting the actually decent piece of artwork of the killer, and the totally cool title font, then adding in what appears to be the cast at the bottom - all nestled comfortably within the confines of Distributors Limited decent layout - this box really hits the sweet spot for Totally Acceptable.

Okay, it still has that ridiculous tagline, but whatever, I'm willing to let it go, if only because it's redundancy is funny to me.

But the greyish blueish tint of the box, married with the fact that Distributors Limited didn't seem like they deserved as much praise as the film itself on the spine, opting instead to give themselves a small appropriate chunk at the top, combined with the graphic design of the artwork being stuck inside the little box on the front really all come together to work as one cohesive whole. Sure, they still give you a goddamned novella on the back, but that's just how things were back then, really. There's no getting around that. It was a product of the time. Seeing as the word "color" has a "u" in it on the spine, I'm feel pretty safe in assuming this box hails from the merry ol' UK, and what a surprise, they've once again done something better in media than ourselves ever could.

So that's Blood Voyage, a movie with a goofy title, one super silly painting on its box variant and from what it seems has been essentially left in the proverbial dust. I'm a film buff and I've never even heard of this movie, which isn't shocking, considering what it seems to be.

Thankfully, someone out there took all the best elements of the previous boxes and managed to make one really neat one that fits the bill and gives it some kind of panache. So thank you, mysterious graphic designer, for your work shall not go unappreciated.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go get murdered on a boat.