Pardon the monumental squee, but my head is in the process of exploding thanks to Sean Hartter’s brilliant alternate universe posters. I may be a little late to the party, since it seems that Hartter’s been posting these for awhile, but there’s really nothing more timeless than an archive of the greatest films never made, from Elric: The White Wolf, directed by John Boorman and starring Willem Dafoe, to John Malkovich’s starring turn as Jason Voorhees in David Lynch’s Friday the 13th.
It’s not just the classic pop art design and the perfect bizarro casting that make these posters so remarkable—it’s the total attention to detail in the credits that warms the nerdy cockles of my film geek heart. Let’s examine Hartter’s take on Ghostbusters for a moment…
Directed by Crane Wilbur (known for mystery/thrillers such as 1954’s House of Wax and 1959’s The Bat), the starring line-up of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Woody Strode is inspired, as is the inclusion of “Bette Davis as ‘Zuul’”—hence the pitch-perfect, campy tagline “Hell on Earth! The soul of a woman possessed by demonic forces!”
Finally, “Music by Henry Mancini” and “Story by Robert Bloch” lend an extra layer of utter believability to the carefully constructed early 60s milieu, and suddenly I haven’t wanted to see a fake movie this badly since the whole Orson Welles-as-Batman hoax. Speaking of which, Hartter’s no slouch when it comes to the Dark Knight, either—Tim Curry as the Joker would clearly be fantastic, but I would happily sell my own grandmother down the Gotham River to see a caped, crusading Christopher Walken take on David Bowie as the Clown Prince of Crime…
Before I start geeking out a little too hard here and end up in Arkham, go ahead and check out Hartter’s blog for more posters, comics, illustrations, and further glimpses into the most entertaining alternate reality ever.
Bridget McGovern understands that attempting to contain the combined awesomness of Walken, Bowie and Batman in a single film might well result in an cosmic overload that could cause the universe to collapse, but she is totally willing to risk it.
