Coming soon to a wall near you: the pizzazz of movie art

Movie posters. They’re great aren’t they? When Sound Destruction Device was young we used to love looking at the videos in Hollywood Video, SDD’s local video shop, and checking out the cover art.

We were fascinated by the covers for the video nasties (which were illegally available to rent, having been banned by the BBFC), dodgy buddy comedies, peculiar sci-fi movies and gritty thrillers. The fascination never went away, but sadly video shops did.

A video nasty. Art by Graham Humphreys.

Fear not. Thanks to the internet people are able communicate more freely, share ideas and develop online communities. It’s wondrous. And out of this has come a place where ‘enthusiasts’ can show off movie posters they have made themselves.

‘Fan art’ doesn't sound all that appealing, but there are lots of genuinely talented people out there who have produced some brilliant movie posters of their own - and they are often better than the originals.

Mondo must have realised this pretty early on - it's worked wonders to fill that video shop shaped void. Based in Texas, Mondo commissions artists to create limited edition screen prints for films old and new.

Big Trouble in Little China by Tyler Sout.

They regularly team-up with the Alamo Drafthouse to produce posters for their film showings. The list of films is long, but past screenings include The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Robocop, The Thing, Akira, Drive and lots more which should be mentioned here but... aren’t. Anyone who buys a ticket gets to take home a poster.

Leftovers are sold on Mondo’s website. They usually sell out in seconds, so they can be quite tricky to get hold of. You can find some on eBay, but you do have to pay slightly over the odds… and a bit more.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by Martin Ansin.

They are beautiful though and if SDD could cover every inch of wall with them it would. Even legendary movie poster artist, Drew Struzan agrees and he did Back to the Future, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones, to name just a few. He’s now working with Mondo on some brand new prints.

You can find out more about Mondo by visiting their website and following them on Twitter.

A fansite called The Alamo Drafthouse Posters includes images of past Mondo/Alamo Drafthouse posters, so you can look longingly at the ones you've missed out on.

And whilst we're at it, there's a nice interview with Justin Ishmael, the Creative Director of Mondo on io9.