4. Alien (1979)
Ridley Scott's Alien is horrifying, gritty and visually very dark. You don't get a sense of these elements from this promo image for the film. The picture is very white and clean, in contrast to the film's shadowy and unclean "lived in" look. Everyone seems to be looking up at the alien but no one seems genuinely terrified. Ash (Ian Holm, furthest to the left) looks like he's ready to fight the alien even though in the film Ash admires the alien and wants to bring it back to earth. This image also feels more like Star Wars than Alien, with an emphasis on high-tech space weapons. And is it me or does Tom Skerritt look very Han Soloish? This image promotes a big budget sci-fi adventure film and not the cerebral, methodically paced horror movie in space that Alien really is.