Trash: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Posters [Paperback]

Jacques Boyreau (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2002

Trash 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. A feast for the eyes and other visceral zones, Trash rolls in the mud with graphic art of such questionable aesthetic quality and social worth 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, Docu Trash), collecting the most zombified, oversexed, lethal pest-infested, and tasteless posters from each genre. With plagues of frogs, meteors headed straight for earth, sex-starved zombies, and explosion after glorious explosion, Trash gleefully crawls across the underbelly of both the cinematic and poster arts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

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.

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 you may find them, such posters now serve as telling artifacts from a time when political correctness wasn't yet on the radar. They also contain a surprising number of big and at least somewhat reputable names: Al Pacino (The Panic in Needle Park), Quincy Jones (Honky), Jackie Gleason (Skidoo), Boris Karloff (The Sorcerers) and Southfork's own Larry Hagman (Son of Blob) are all present and accounted for, even if they'd rather that you didn't know.

Rest assured that they all got paid, because money was ultimately what exploitation movies were all about. Cheap thrills ahve always made long green. If you need a contemporary reminder, just watch reality TV. -The Dallas Morning News

Boyreau, co-owner of San Francisco's Weredpad, an underground movie theater/cinema archive, has edited together a coffee table edition that reprints and notates more than 150 of the loudest, gaudiest and cheapest-looking movie posters ever created. Covering pulp cinema from the '50s all the way to the '80s, these outlandish one-sheets represent a cross-section of art from the "trashiest" films ever created. The collection revels in all kinds of alternative cinema, from zombie gore-fests to scantily clad women's prison movies - from nuns in biker gangs to the scientific horrow of oversized bugs.
Depending on your point of view, Trash is either a celebration of the visceral power of baroque popular culture or an indictment of raunchy forms of media that play to the lowest common denominator.
Either way, you can't tear your eyes away from it. -Cinescape

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (June 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811834174
• ISBN-13: 978-0811834179
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #907,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great., April 2, 2005

By 

Dymon Enlow "Dymon Enlow" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trash: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Posters (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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Trash- Pick it Up, September 9, 2002

By 

Mike Desert "Rock n Roll Fan" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trash: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Posters (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', December 22, 2002

By 

John Cook "Blu-ray, electronics enthusiast" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trash: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Posters (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.