“If clients want horror posters, I always have to explain that it’s not like walking into Wal-Mart and picking up something on the way home. A challenge for his business in that the genre is in such high demand. “These posters rarely become available,” confirms David Lieberman, CEO, owner and founder of CineMasterpieces, a firm that specializes in the sale of movie posters and other filmic memorabilia. This unchangeable confluence of historical moment, supply, and demand likely mean that horror posters will continue to generate record-breaking sale after sale. The Mummy, however, was one of the very first proto-horrors developed from an original concept. In their own time, however, they were simply literary adaptations with chilling elements. Universal’s adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein are the beginning of what we think of, today, as American horror. “If you look at all of the 1930s, there’s maybe a dozen horror films at most,” said Kendrick. When a movie left theaters, its posters were thrown out and new ones printed if necessary for a re-release.Įarly horror, in particular, is impacted by its history. While posters were the primary way to advertise a film during the age of radio, and even at the dawn of television, the audience and the industry viewed these advertisements as entirely disposable. That rate of survival is pretty typical for horror posters, and other genres haven’t fared much better.Īs soon as poster collecting became fashionable, the scarcity of older titles was always going to be an issue. Sotheby’s The Mummy is one of only three known to exist (one of which is owned by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, an avid horror poster collector). The utter scarcity of these posters adds greatly to their value. Even people who don’t know horror have a sense of who Bela Lugosi is, as well as Boris Karloff, and they know Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy,” said James Kendrick, professor in the Department of Film & Digital Media at Baylor University. “The Universal cycle of horror movies is ingrained into popular culture. the mummy returns, the mummy movie, the mummy returns cast, the mummy series, spooky, rachel weisz, halloween, mummy birthday, brendan fraser, horror, bumper, mummy christmas, the mummy 2, rick oconnell, mummy funny, mummy face.
Shop affordable wall art to hang in dorms, bedrooms. Part of their appeal is of course their cultural currency -early horror movie quotes, costumes and characters are among the best remembered and mimicked movie motifs today. Unique The Mummy Posters designed and sold by artists.