Ochre and clay and sulphur, oh my! The poster for Agnieszka Smoczynska's big budget Artificial Intelligence dystopian sci-fi thriller, Hot Spot, is from Gravillis, the design house who did yeoman's work on the campaigns for Sinners and Obsession in the past year.
The wavy, reality distorted deserted landscapes -- the tagline, "The system Is unstable" in a white computer, but not too-computer font seems to confirm this -- and posed characters in the foreground in front of distant cities and skyscrapers, speak as much to post-apocalyptic cinema as it does westerns, or cyberpunk. This is a poster that truly stands out with colour and mise-en-scène alone. A red title-card is usually coded towards horror elements. If you are familiar with Smoczynska's genre-bending The Lure, a cute, violent, mythology-drenched mermaid musical and love story, this seems to track quite well.
The credit block has plenty of space in the sand dunes at the bottom, giving the illusion of a more 'wide-screen' presentation over the vertical. I would sure be curious if a Quad style version of this poster comes out in the UK or wherever that horizontal design still finds any kind of purchase in the cinema lobby.
Friday One Sheet: HOT SPOT