Trash: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Poster Art proudly assembles more than 150 masterpieces of twisted brilliance: lowbrow graphic poster art from the sickest, sleaziest, sexiest, and weirdest films from the 1950s through the 1980s. Most poster art and film poster surveys focus on design, composition, and vintage wonder. Trash rolls in the mud with graphic art of such questionable (social) quality that it practically redefines the poster as advertising medium. Chapters each define a key trash topic (Sex Trash, Action Trash, Sick Trash, Race Trash, Groovy Trash, and Docu Trash), collecting the funniest, most disturbing, and desperate posters from each genre. Short introductions set the tone, offer eye-opening context, and then just get out of the way to let the posters themselves run riot on the page. Thrill to unfortunate star turns, plagues of frogs, meteors headed straight for earth, sex-starved zombies, and explosion after explosion. Includes jaw-dropping vintage ad mats (ads as they ran in newspapers, Astro Zombies cheek-by-jowl with The Godfather) and promotional materials (salacious sell kits given to theater owners to reel in customers). One glance at the bold and astonishing artwork convinces.
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The saying oges that one man's trash is another's treasure. Then there's "Trash," a treasure chest of exploitation movie poster art assembled by Jacques Boyreau and published by Chronicle Books ($19.95).
You don't have to have seen the movies to enjoy the gaudy graphics and pure bad taste in "Trash"; if you've seen more than a handful of them, you might want to seek professional help. You don't even have to know what an exploitation movies is (loosely defined, it's a cheaply made movie that addresses a hot topic with reckless abandon). Just bring a dark sense of humor and an appreciation for kitsch.
Many of the posters in "Trash" may make you laugh and cringe at the same time.
You don't have to have seen the movies to enjoy the gaudy graphics and pure bad taste in "Trash"; if you've seen more than a handful of them, you might want to seek professional help. You don't even have to know what an exploitation movies is (loosely defined, it's a cheaply made movie that addresses a hot topic with reckless abandon). Just bring a dark sense of humor and an appreciation for kitsch.
Many of the posters in "Trash" may make you laugh and cringe at the same time.
Take the poster for "Corruption" (1968). The color art shows three corpses lying in a bedroom with smoke streaming in from the edges. Then there's the ad copy, scrawled in what looks like black and red crayon: "Corruption is not a woman's picture! Therefore: No Woman Will Be Admitted Alone To See This Super-Shock Film!!" It's sexism and violence all rolled into one, the epitome of trash marketing.
Of course the more blatant sexploitation came in the form of large-breasted she-killers. "Hustler Squad" (1976) certainly owed a debt to Russ Meyer. The poster shows a bevy of buxom, barely dressed women pumping lead into their male adversaries. "Professionals...You Pay For The Pleasure, The Killing Is Free!" reads the copy. Like the current movie marketing departments that quote "critics," trash posters had a real thing for exclamation points.
And no exploitation display would be complete without blaxploitation, the genre that helped lift Hollywood out of deep financial crisis in the early '70s. Blaxploitation was so big that it even crossed over to Mexico: The poster for "El Salvaje Negro" shows a black man dressed in black with an orange poncho, blasting a flame-thrower into the air as - guess who? - buxom beauties fire their machine guns in the background.
As offensive as y
About the Author
Jacques Boyreau co-founded the half-bar, half-underground cinema known as the Werepad. His archive, Cosmic Hex, contains hundreds of cult, horror, and sci-fi films, as well as thousands of movie posters. He lives in San Francisco.
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First Sentence
One great thing about Sex Trash is its candor. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
One great thing about Sex Trash is its candor. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
An aptly titled book of 150 movie posters (in colour) most of which are of such rock bottom awfulness that you might think, just for a moment, that they originally appeared in back issues of the National Lampoon. But these are the real thing, these are the poster styles that the Lampoon used for their inspired satires. When collected together in a book they take on a perverse fascination. I can only assume that the designers (they were designed?) knew what they were doing and the audience they were appealing to. Actually I think these three are quite good, The Howling, WUSA, Killer Force.
In six chapters, Sex, Action, Horror, Groovy, Race and Docu author and poster collector Jacques Boyreau writes a short introduction to each and his writing style is as trashy as the images. Many of the posters are full page, all the better to study their bizarre illustrations and sloppy typography, others are two to a page and here it would have been helpful to run a thin black line round the image to stop the light colours merging into the whiteness of the page.
Get the book if you are interested in this sub-genre of popular culture or if you work in the graphic design business this could be useful as a swipe file for what to avoid.
In six chapters, Sex, Action, Horror, Groovy, Race and Docu author and poster collector Jacques Boyreau writes a short introduction to each and his writing style is as trashy as the images. Many of the posters are full page, all the better to study their bizarre illustrations and sloppy typography, others are two to a page and here it would have been helpful to run a thin black line round the image to stop the light colours merging into the whiteness of the page.
Get the book if you are interested in this sub-genre of popular culture or if you work in the graphic design business this could be useful as a swipe file for what to avoid.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars
7 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not great.
2 April 2005
By Dymon Enlow
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
All fans of exploitation cinema will find this a mandatory purchase, but with only 150 images I was a little disappointed. Another drawback is the absence of such exploitation classics as MARK OF THE DEVIL, PINK FLAMINGOS, FREAKS, REEFER MADNESS, MOM AND DAD, MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN, MS. 45, EVEN HITLER HAD A GIRLFRIEND, MANIAC, STREET TRASH and any and all nunsploitation and nazi films, but yet the inclusion of mainstream movies like MAD MAX, THE HOWLING and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.
Still despite all my complaints it's worth buying. Here are some of my favorites: KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, SIX PACK ANNE, TRIP WITH THE TEACHER, SCUM OF THE EARTH, DEATH IN SMALL DOSES and THE PUSHER.
Still despite all my complaints it's worth buying. Here are some of my favorites: KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, SIX PACK ANNE, TRIP WITH THE TEACHER, SCUM OF THE EARTH, DEATH IN SMALL DOSES and THE PUSHER.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Trash- Pick it Up
10 Sep 2002
By Mike Desert
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
For those of us who have wished for a book that featured nothing but beautiful color reproductions or horror, sci fi and exploitation art this is our answer.
While I love books such as "Immoral Tales" and such, sometimes I just want to look at the art of these one sheets for refrence -design ideas, painting styles, etc... and many books will have only a dozen or so nice color plates while the rest of the book is filled with the authors interpretations of the films.
Trash's focus is on the art and aside from an introduction, (where the author does explain why they chose not to airbrush out the flaws and creases of the posters in the book) there is nothing but photos.
For those who want in depth movie reviews and director profiles, there are several books and web pages out there, but for those of us who also admire the long lost poster ART, this book has fabulous images.
My one complaint is that instead of changing genres each chapter (horror, exploitation, sci fi, etc..) this book should have been a series of books, each catagory being a seperate volume! I hope they print a volume 2.
If you liked this book, check out "Blood and Black Lace" (might be out of print) which has is the definitive book on Italian Giallos, and has many color reproductions of the rare onesheets.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not 'Trash'
23 Dec 2002
By John Cook
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I've thumbed through many a poster book at my local bookstores but this one I just had to own! Probably because 'exploitation' movies are my favorite guilty pleasure cinema. Assembled here is some great art, when movie posters actually leapt off of the paper they were drawn on--to get in your face. New movie poster artists should get this book as a reference for their ad campaigns (and you can tell some are starting to...) In an age of such: passiveness in film, where everything is rated PG-13, it's nice to reflect on this golden age of poster art for films, that mostly, delivered what they advertised. A worthy purchase for the film fan.
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3.4 out of 5 stars
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