Remember that look?
In 1996, the Scream box art set the template for the next 5 years: Faces and plunging necklines, usually stacked into a sharp V, or mirrored into an inverted V. The lead front and centre, everyone else fanning behind, posed in equal parts concern and smoulder.
We were already used to the popular photoshopped ‘floating head’ posters like A Few Good Men or Legends of The Fall, but this was a deliberate design that worked beautifully on a 4×7 area. It gave every marketable actor a slice of the frame while leaving negative space for a mask, a knife, or a tagline about it being “hip”. With the 90’s Slasher wave, they weren’t worried about selling the killer or the plot, they were selling the ready for the WB hotness.
By 2002, the trend moved away from this and into blended montages, overly photoshopped fuzziness and distressed sepia-toned screaming faces (that’s another topic), but for a few years, the Flying V layout was dominant cleavage-friendly shorthand to present Ten Little Indians in the coolest way possible. -Pop
Wuxtry:
My little ‘montage’ isn’t the most comprehensive list of 90s horror and thriller titles – I could have easily taken more examples from other genres like The Fast and The Furious, Donny Darko, Cruel Intentions, Mimic, Ghosts of Mars, etc…
But for anyone needing a head count:
The 3 covers club:
- Neve Campbell – Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3
- Courteney Cox – Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3
- David Arquette – Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3
- James Marsden – Disturbing Behavior, Campfire Tales, Gossip
The 2 covers club:
- Jennifer Love Hewitt – I Know What You Did…, I Still Know…
- Freddie Prinze Jr. – I Know What You Did…, I Still Know…
- Ali Larter – Final Destination, House on Haunted Hill
- Josh Hartnett – Halloween H20, The Faculty
- Katie Holmes – Disturbing Behavior, Teaching Mrs. Tingle
- Joshua Jackson – Urban Legend, Gossip
- Liev Schreiber – Scream 2, Phantoms
