Friday One Sheet: Silent Cry Face, DOWNRANGE

One of the greatest modern posters, in my humble opinion, is Akiko Stehrenberger's striking key art for the American remake of Michael Haneke's Funny Games. In it, we see Naomi Watts, in high-contrast close-up, hair out of place, silent tears streaming down her face: the torture of one of Hollywood's famous stars. The design has been copied in the past, namely for the Alejandro Amenábar’s Regression, a forgettable horror picture with Emma Watson. And it is not just the ladies, consider last years surprise horror hit, and Daniel Kaluuya's tears in this variant poster for Get Out. Even more recently, Emily Blunt's visage sheds a silent tear in the post-apocalytic horror picture, A Quiet Place, which (coincidentally) opens today.

So along comes this design, for Kitamura Ryûhei's ode to direct-to-DVD sniper-thriller, Down Range, that is less about a passion play on a famous movie star, the face is entirely to much in close-up to make out the identity of the actress, but you know that she is watching (and looking into to the glare of the sun) and bleeding, and that is probably enough. The unconventional credit block placement is a dead giveaway that design firm Unsupervised Kids are big fans of Stehrenberger.

(For the record, the initial teaser Downrange poster is original and excellent, far less 'borrowed' in its design. And that tagline, "Hell is on the way." Pure genius.)