For the last hundred years or so promotional images have been one of the most important marketing tools in the movie industry. From movie posters, to publicity stills, to candid behind-the-scenes photos; these images have the difficult job of getting us interested in a film with a single glance. Nobody can deny that this is a hard thing to do and when it's done well we rightfully acknowledge it. For instance, who could forget the poster for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction? The one featuring Uma Thurman laying on the bed smoking a cigarette with a handgun laying in front of her? Nobody knew what this movie was all about but the poster alone was enough to spark our curiosity. On the other hand, sometimes promotional images simply try way too hard and end up becoming quite ridiculous. From low-budget '80s horror movies to recent big-budget blockbusters this is what we're going to be focusing on today. Promo photos that are quite preposterous... or awesome, or terrible, or all of these things. Now, this doesn't mean that the film it represents is bad, quite the contrary, a lot of the movies we are going to be looking at today are quite good (though a lot of them are pretty awful as well). So with that being said, these are the twenty most ridiculous movie promotional images ever released.
20. A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
When we look at this image for the third entry of the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise we really don't know what to think. The film, of course, follows the man of our nightmares Freddy Krueger as he systematically murders teenagers in their sleep at a local hospital. Heather Langenkamp from the original film returns as Dr. Nancy Thompson to once again take on her arch nemesis and help a few kids along the way. In this promotional image we see a young Patricia Arquette with Langenkamp laying in her lap as Freddy mean mugs. What exactly is this image trying to convey? This looks like a promotion for an upcoming HBO drama rather than a slasher film. Though to be fair, many people consider this to be the film where Freddy went from being scary to becoming a joke. So it actually makes a lot of sense that this makes no sense... if that makes any sense.
19. Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
When the first Friday the 13th was released in 1980 it was a modest hit at the box-office. However, as the sequels and box-office grew so did the gimmicks. This cumulated with the cringe-worthy eighth entry of the franchise Jason Takes Manhattan. The promotion for this film took things into overdrive. First having Kane Hodder dressed as Jason appear on The Arsenio Hall Show and then with this ridiculously awesome poster featuring Jason showing his love for The Big Apple. The poster is, of course, a play on one of the most widely distributed and imitated images in the world; the "I Love New York" logo designed by Milton Glaser. While the movie wasn't all that great, this poster will forever have a special place in our hearts.