Be Kind, Rewind

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the video rental store... We're back with yet another monster fish movie, because that is just such a super viable subgenre on the horror world for some reason. And I guess it's not that surprising, in the end. The ocean is endless, vast and practically unsearched, so we don't know what horrors lie in wait, and that's pretty terrifying. That being said, this is one of the more mixed box arts I've covered, because it's both awesome and terrible, somehow. Before we move on, let's just state the obvious...DevilFish is a TERRIBLE title. There's no getting around that, alright. It makes it sound like Satan possessed a giant fish and is now causing havoc off the shore of a beach, and that's just lame, man. Satan's got better things to do. Also, the tagline, while not terrible, is actually pretty bad in this context, as it implies the viewer is the DevilFish, seeing as humans don't sink their teeth int...

Yog is, plain and simple, a Kaiju film. It doesn't pretend to be anything else, there's nothing odd about it, it's very straight forward. But that doesn't mean its box art is exempt from being laughed at because WOW does this thing look like crap. Yet another installment in the "We let our child draw this" series, this cover art for Yog is downright awful. Actually titled "Space Amoeba", and only retitled for the American release in 1971, Yog might be one of the few movies I've covered with no decent title whatsoever. I mean, "Space Amoeba" is just as generic as "Yog, Monster From Space", and the fact that they tried to title the film after one singular character when it's full of kick-ass Kaiju creatures really tells you how very little the American film industry knew of foreign film at the time. The film is somewhat notable, however, for it being the final film with special effects work done by Toho special effects studi...

In what looks like a scene of a creature from the depths of the ocean trying to seduce a woman, we have the cover for Island Claws, another VHS classic steeped in genetic experiments gone awry leading to the growth of what the back blurb only describes as "a man eating creature, beyond all parameters of science and evolution". But, like, it's a crab. Like look at the front cover artwork. That's a crab, my dude. I don't usually just jump right in like this, but I'm sorry, I will not let a movie try and purposefully mislead me into thinking there's something grotesque and monstrous in it, when even the movie itself shows me on the front cover what its creature actually is. It's a giant fucking crab. This is a truly basic cover design, so basic even that I'm not sure it warrants a discussion. There's not much of note outside of the fairly well done pencil sketching on the front. The single non contextual screenshot we're given on the back is n...

This woman looks more like she's having fun playfully tugging at her overshirt than she's genuinely annoyed that some creature from the depths of a watery grave is trying to drag her down to him. Oh sure lady, laugh it up, laugh it up until you're down there too, never to be seen or heard from again all because you didn't take river ghouls seriously enough to not act like you were involved in some weird playboy photo shoot when one came at you, intending to make you his prisoner wife. Lady, tut the Coppertone Girl shit and take this seriously. Along with the bizarre tone of the photo itself is the font, which, I have to admit, is pretty cool in and of itself, but really makes this feel more like some sort of weird pseudo horror themed workout video than an actual horror movie proper. Also very cute putting the actress's name, Brooke Adams, right on the water itself. Nothing like good ol' H20 related jokes to liven up a box art. And then, to top it all off, we...