“EVERYONE HAS A BREAKING POINT,” Yeesh. There’s a good poster in here, but that unneeded and silly tagline doesn’t help matters much. But, really, how many taglines are genuinely good nowadays? Pretty much none. Screen Gems has just putout this lesser homage (via director Rod Lurie’s twitter feed) to the original 1971 Straw Dogs poster; something that’ll anger fans, but will probably work for the average filmgoers who have no idea what a Peckinpah is.
Check it out below:
As a piece of marketing, it’s fine. The trailer aimed for, as snobs usually say, the lowest common denominator, so why wouldn’t the poster? The inclusion of Alexander Skarsgård’s good looking mug reduced down to a cartoon face looks goofy and completely out of place, but sometimes that’s what you need to market a film: a floating head of a recognizable and upcoming star to help sell your movie.
I think Straw Dogs is one of those films that will be continuously bashed on until release – and that’ll be mainly due to how Screen Gems is marketing the film – but will surprise a few (understandable) cynics once they’ve seen it. I’ve heard the film is a lot less generic than the trailer bills it to be and also that it’s well modernized to today’s world. So for now, why not give the benefit of the doubt to the director of Nothing But the Truth and The Contender?
Straw Dogs hits theaters on September 16th.
