Friday One Sheet: THE AMUSEMENT PARK

This surreal poster from designer Aleksander Walijewski echoes the strange feeling of getting a 'new' George A. Romero film nearly four years after the maestro's passing.

The film is, of course, not 'new' in the sense that it was made recently, but rather that it was restored from its 1973 lost status, and given a swanky 4K release from Yellow Veil Pictures and the Shudder streaming service. The film is a short 53 minute horror picture on the horrors of ageism and the shysterism of shady theme parks that was made for pennies in 1973, in the period between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of The Dead, and adjacent to 'zombie-lite' pandemic thriller, The Crazies.

Done tangentially in the rich history of Polish poster art, which is often simultaneously minimalist and avant-garde, I love how the carousel (a good metaphor for life) is also used as the lead characters 'eyes' here. We are observing a part of life (old age) that society, then and now, prefers not to spend too much time considering. Walijewski's work often features 'opening up' or a duplicating of his central subject's head and face, and he is well on point here.

The soft blue gradient looks almost hospital institutional, and the highlight of the head-wound (sustained by the character in the film) certainly underscores this. And finally, the tagline, "See You In The Park, Someday." is ominous and inevitable. We are all going to age, and it is going to be horrific (see also: Michaele Haneke's Amour).

Welcome back from the dead, Mr. Romero, you've got red on you.