Read Them If You Dare - Best Horror Movie Taglines Ever
Ah, the scent of mentholated salve in the air can only mean one thing: It's time for another dose of "I'm old and here to yell about how everything was better back in my day!" Case in point: The venerable and all-but-forgotten art of the tagline. They weren't all gems, but once upon a time taglines were seriously committed to getting our butts in the theater seats by promising lurid hyperviolence and sights best seen by the eyes of Satan himself.
I love the ones that draw me into the world of the film, that make it seem as if the killer is going to leap off the screen and kill me to death. Here are ten of my personal favorites: The ones that have stuck with me, the ones that frightened me and the ones that simply made me say "Ugh, I really gotta see that movie!"
In no particular order...
1. Last House on the Left: To avoid fainting, keep repeating "It's only a movie...It's only a movie..."
2. Alien: In space, no one can hear you scream.
3. The Fly: Be Afraid. Be very Afraid.
4. Night of the Creeps: The good news is your date is here. The bad news is...he's dead.
5. Dawn of the Dead: When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.
6. Maniac: I warned you not to go out tonight.
7. The Mutilator: By pick, by axe, by sword. Bye Bye!
8. The Prey: It's not human... and it's got an axe!
9. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Who will survive, and what will be left of them?
10. Abby: Abby doesn't need a man anymore... The Devil is her lover now!
Really, how could you not want to see Abby after reading that? It's a classic exploitation come on, and it works: The movie is begging to be witnessed!
Several of these films have been remade, and the efforts of today's marketing teams pale by comparison. Take, for example, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Granted, the original boasts what just might be the greatest tagline in horror history and the remake would be hard pressed to top it. But "Inspired by a true story?" That's what constitutes a terrifying teaser in 2003? For shame! Or The Amityville Horror: The original ads screamed "For God's sake, get out!" Which of course meant, "For God's sake, I have to get in there now!" The 2005 remake: "Based on a true story." Oh, yeah, I'm positively wringing my hands with fearful anticipation.
It kinda feels like no one's really trying anymore. Attention spans are shorter, everyone is multitasking and taglines aren't going to make or break a movie, so who cares if they stink? They increasingly seem to have been crafted from magnetic poetry sets; just make sure to include a couple of standard words -- "evil," "face," "terror," "alive" -- and call it a day. Is some cranky old horror blogger going to reminisce years from now about how great it was to be hooked and reeled in by the tagline from The Fog (2005)? Probably not: "From the makers of Halloween" just doesn't have the staying power of, say, "Sometimes dead is better" (Pet Sematary). But that's life.
I've barely scratched the surface here, so look for more in a future column, along with at least one list of real stinkers. And share your favorites and unfavorites below -- there's nothing like a trip down someone else's memory lane.
A fan of horror movies and scary stuff, Stacie Ponder started her blog Final Girl so she'd have a platform from which she could tell everyone that, say, Friday the 13th, Part 2 rules. She leads a glamorous life, walking on the razor's edge of danger and intrigue.
Very nice choices! My personal favorite is the tagline for The Lift, about the killer elevator: "Take the stairs, take the stairs. For God's sake, take the Stairs!!!"
How about this one from The Exorcist? "Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house." That's creepy!
As soon as I saw the post title, I was thinking "please please please have The Prey on there." That one's been burned into my memory since childhood; I finally had to Google the tagline to figure out what movie it was from.
I think the reason it stuck with me is because it's so subtly nonsensical. I mean, if it's not human, well, that's the real take-away here, isn't it? The bit about the axe sort of dilutes the impact, insofar as you've now narrowed your lifeform options down to those whose physiologies would allow for axe-wielding, so right off the bat you know you're not gonna get strangled by tentacles or swallowed whole or what have you. Heck, it might as well be human, if its MO is to just whack you with something it found in a shed.
Ironically, "it" most certainly is human (a little on the mutated side, but less so than most in the backwoods slasher subgenre). The ending proves it, assuming you're a stickler for the laws of cross-breeding.
Anyway, score another point for "horror" versus "thriller." 75% of all thrillers have the same tagline: "Sometimes, (central character's vocation) can be MURDER!"
My fave is Galaxy of Terror.
"Hell has just been relocated!"
Absolute best is from "Magic" -- Abracadabra, I sit on his knee. Presto, change-o, and now he's me! Hocus Pocus, we take her to bed. Magic is fun...when you're dead.
Before the movie's release, my heart would start pounding whenever I heard the commercial on TV. I didn't actually see the entire, R-rated version until about 10 years ago (there are 2 or 3 PG-versions floating around) and it lives up to the hype.
If I have to pick one from the list, though, I guess "Alien". I was a senior in high school when the movie came out and we had a German exchange student. He thought it was pronounced "allein" which means "alone" in German. Pretty cool, if you ask me, considering the story.
It's hard to beat Evil Dead's for simple hubris: "The Ultimate Experience in Gruelling Terror." Just don't hedge there at all, guys. Technically I guess it's the subtitle, I suppose, at least according to the end credits. Which is a funny moment to get all subtitle-y, but whatever.
But my personal favorite is Near Dark's tag: "Pray for Daylight." Spare and poetic -- just like the film.
As a kid I saw the poster for Popcorn in my neighborhood video store and I've never forgotten the tagline because it was creepy, clever, and made me laugh: "Buy a bag, go home in a box."
"Seed of Chucky" had many great taglines... including "Get a load of Chucky" & "Deliver Us some evil"... actually, all the Chucky movies had funny taglines. "Chucky gets lucky" etc.
My personal favorite was for the old '80s flick Slaughterhouse (which I think is on DVD somewhere):
"Buddy has an axe to grind. A big axe."
And there, on the cover, stands Buddy.
I've never actually seen the film, I'm pretty sure, but that tagline always cracked me up.
I don't remember the name of the movie, but it had something to do with a fun house (in retrospect it may have been called Fun House).
Anyway, the tagline was "Pay to get in; Pray to get out"
One tag line I heard as a kid that has always stuck in my head is from a 70's film called "The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane" starring Jodie foster, and it went:
"ASK HER NO QUESTIONS SHE'LL TELL YOU NO LIES, ASK HER TOO MANY AND SOMEBODY ..."