When John Carpenter released Halloween in 1978, he never could have imagined this happening. We don’t mean the abundance of slasher imitators that spawned multiple franchises of their own. We mean all the damn movie posters based on the film!
Halloween has got to be one of the most popular films to inspire pop culture artists. It might even be the most popular. Dozens and dozens of artists have all taken a crack at the film, creating gorgeous, highly collectible posters. So with the new film coming out, I decided to pick my favorites out of that group, most of which have been long sold out, and put them all together in a single place. I also discovered some new posters, many of which are still available, that could just rival some of these classics.
First up, here are a bunch of Halloween posters that are on either sale now via Hero Complex or will be going on sale Friday via Mondo. Check them out, complete with purchase links.
Now, while all those posters are (or will be) currently available, the below posters have long since sold out so they’re only available on the secondary market. Still, they are incredible.
That’s 22 posters total and that’s just a tiny sliver of what’s available. You can visit the pop culture art website Expresso Beans, search “Halloween,” to see even more. (Or just click here, I made a link for you.)
Some may wonder what it is about this film, more than, say, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, or The Shining that makes artists pay it such frequent homage. Frankly, I don’t have an answer to that—maybe it’s just easier to get the license. Or maybe it was just that formative for a generation of artists. Either way, it’s well-deserved and the results are incredibly gorgeous.
Correction: The first version of this story had the posters in photo galleries that didn’t work, so it was changed out. Also, Blain Hefner was listed as “Brian” Hefner and that has been edited.