Worst DVD covers... ever!

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dx23 · #451 Post by **dx23** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 4:46 am

Schkura · #452 Post by **Schkura** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 6:49 am

Jesus! Are those bad enough for you, Don?

Way to lower the bar, dx.

tryavna · #453 Post by **tryavna** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 9:46 pm

I don't know which is better: "First she mates.... Then she terminates!" or the look on those two pigs' faces?

Ste · #454 Post by **Ste** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:29 am

At first I was like, "What's wrong with All Quiet on the Western Front?" Then it hit me...whoa! It must've been lonely in those trenches...

That said, the picture itself wouldn't be nearly so bad if it wasn't for the placement of the title. Brilliant stuff.

HerrSchreck · #455 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 4:02 am

Ste wrote:At first I was like, "What's wrong with All Quiet on the Western Front?" Then it hit me...whoa! It must've been lonely in those trenches...

That said, the picture itself wouldn't be nearly so bad if it wasn't for the placement of the title. Brilliant stuff.

You're talking about the remake of ALL QUIET repro'd above?

Donald Trampoline · Sun Apr 02, 2006 6:33 am

Schkura wrote:Jesus! Are those bad enough for you, Don?

Only "Race with the Devil."

"Modern Problems" is an extremely normal DVD cover. This is exactly the kind of indiscriminate dumping of a bunch of perhaps mediocre covers that is making me want to seek intervention to prevent me from clicking on this thread.

The Jet Li one is bad but it's pretty much the same cover Tai Seng has given that movie for years, going back to VHS. It's not really the kind of groundbreaking and exciting new "bad" that I was hoping for.

It's more the content of the "River Cottage" series that is bizarre. Not spectacular covers, though, but you could rummage through the bargain bins at Sav-On and find lots of crap like that with bad covers. Or just post the egg one. Really, it dilutes the impact of that one crazy cover to have the other two only moderately stupid covers on there.

In general, if you have more than one cover to post at a time, you probably haven't been discriminating enough. (And it also perhaps indicates that you have taken special time out of your day just to search the Internet looking for bad DVD covers to post on this site, thereby having taken your interest in Internet forum posting perhaps one step too far.)

skuhn8 · #457 Post by **skuhn8** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:31 am

are you kidding? That Jet Li cover is attrocious, irrespective of what previous covers you've seen of it. This is a fun thread, buddy. I don't think posters should need to cross reference their finds with VHS issues that may be floating about.

But the All Quiet cover seems fine.

Schkura · #458 Post by **Schkura** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:32 am

reaky · #459 Post by **reaky** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:24 am

EDIT: A humiliating failure, but I tried to post the cover of the MGM THE GHOUL...

Not so much for its layout, but its flagrant dishonesty. You'd never guess this was a 1933 Karloff film, would you?

HerrSchreck · #460 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:44 am

O man, GHOUL has been a thorn in my eye for a long time. I grabbed that sucker as soon as it came out (stunned that a print aside from that czech disaster existed), and when I saw the cover I didn't know whether to keel over & puke or fall on the floor laughing.

Beautiful Carlton print, flawless, of this '33 gem (very flawed script after the first half hour, of course... but required for any early horror buff, or cinematography buff, as it is stunningly beautiful-- Gunther Krampf, who lensed PANDORAS BOX).

Very very dumb cover.

peerpee · #461 Post by **peerpee** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:13 pm

skuhn8 wrote:
But the All Quiet cover seems fine.

Looks like old Borgy is sucking off John-Boy Walton on the cover. I think that's what a previous poster was alluding to earlier.

dx23 · #462 Post by **dx23** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 4:50 pm

reaky wrote:EDIT: A humiliating failure, but I tried to post the cover of the MGM THE GHOUL...

Not so much for its layout, but its flagrant dishonesty. You'd never guess this was a 1933 Karloff film, would you?

Do you mean this one?

reaky · #463 Post by **reaky** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 5:10 pm

That's the one. I honestly cannot understand the marketing thought behind this kind of strategy. Do they really think that the punter who picks up a copy of something they believe to be a contemporary CGI monster-flick is going to shrug when he finds a b/w classic on his screen instead and say "ah, maybe it'll be interesting", rather than storm back to the shop, demand a refund and vow never to trust that goddamn DVD company again? Perhaps they're just counting on buyer inertia. At any rate, it's unedifying to see a company actually ashamed of what they're trying to flog, to the point of misrepresenting it.

Kinsayder · #464 Post by **Kinsayder** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:47 am

Why design more than one row of flames when you can just copy and paste?

HistoryProf · #465 Post by **HistoryProf** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:37 am

because then it would look cheap. duh.

Lemmy Caution · #466 Post by **Lemmy Caution** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:50 am

This is a horrible cover. Made worse because of its misrepresentation. A young DeNiro has a small bit part in the film, but the disembodied head of an older well-known DeNiro forms the centerpiece of the dvd cover. The cover also fails to provide any theme or clue as to what the movie is about.

Slightly askew from the topic, but I'm in China, where most Dvd's are pirated versions of real output.
Especially for the new films there are alot of funny things on the (pirated) dvd covers.

In order of hilarity:

1) Negative quotes on Dvd covers.
It's so against the purpose of using quotes that it never fails to amuse. Examples off the top of my head:
a) large white letters across the bottom of the dvd of Elf:
"Curiously Flaccid" - Cleveland Plain Dealer
b) "Supercross is supercrappy"
And often the quotes come from IMDB or Rottentomato comments ... so you too might have been quoted on a knock-off Dvd in China. It's also entertaining when a film gets one star (or less) from a reviewer.

2) Back covers of newer films often list personnel and information from different movies. So you get things like Star Wars directed by Quentin Tarentino, featuring Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta and Brice Willis. Or some such. It messes with your mind because the front covers are often perfect. Well, perfect except for ...

3) English Mis-spellings and genuine Chinglish.
Best of course when the titles themselves are misspelled in large font. I think my favorite was "Citizen Kang" perhaps directed by the Chinese Orson Welles.

(and getting away from the topic a bit, it is always amusing when the English sub-titles for an American movie have been re-translated back into English from the Chinese. Can't think of any specific examples off hand, but there was one animated children's film in which they had a little trouble getting the tone right. The heavy use of four letter words was fairly surreal).

HerrSchreck · #467 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:04 am

I didn't know Deniro was a giant, either.

Lemmy Caution · #468 Post by **Lemmy Caution** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:38 am

Born to Win is one of the worst covers I own.
I need to figure out how to post a large picture of the cover, because blown up I think its full crapitude will be much more evident.

Next time I'm at a shop, flipping through thousands of unorganized Dvd's I will note some truly awful covers.

I think some of the early choices on this thread, such as The Thing and Seagall's Into The Sun, don't really belong on this list. Those covers are effective in that they stand out from the pack. If you actualy look at and analyze The Thing's cover it might qualify as facile and/or stupid. But it hits you as something abstractly creepy, presented in an unusual and arresting color. In general, I find that covers with reds and yellows (such as Into The Sun and others with with either explosions or blood-red themes) tend to make more of a visual impression when you are flipping through rows of Dvd's.

Lemmy Caution · #469 Post by **Lemmy Caution** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:43 am

HerrSchreck wrote:I didn't know Deniro was a giant, either.

Yeah, it's just plain weird looking.
(I think they were attempting to depict star-power in proportional head size).
Also, what a waste to have the lovely Karen Black in profile where she could be just about anyone.

Polybius · #470 Post by **Polybius** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:57 am

*Makes note to self to check out Lady Terminator and Carlito's Angels...*

Wonder how often tourists tell the River Cottage guy how much they liked him as Billy Bibbitt?

#471 Post by **Matt** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:33 pm

Polybius wrote:*Makes note to self to check out Lady Terminator

Do it, you won't be sorry. The Lady Terminator cover, though, is exactly the right cover for that movie.

Donald Trampoline · Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:30 pm

I found a large version for you, Lemmy.

And here are some equally misleading ones. First is for the US DVD release.

I won't qualify them all as "bad", but still misleading vis-a-vis De Niro

I appreciated your stories about the hilarious negative quotes on the bootlegs in China.

For fun, the VHS. And, yes, I think I just broke my own rule about not posting multiple covers! Guilty!

skuhn8 · #473 Post by **skuhn8** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:08 pm

I haven't seen Born to Win yet. Is there something in the movie that is particularly offensive to graphic designers that would solicit such heinous product? But I do appreciate Karen Black waving "Hi kids!"

King of Kong · #474 Post by **King of Kong** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:19 pm

Makes you wonder what De Niro is doing on the centre cover...

justeleblanc · #475 Post by **justeleblanc** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:43 pm

King of Kong wrote:Makes you wonder what De Niro is doing on the centre cover...

isn't that the bukake scene from cape fear?

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Worst DVD covers... ever!