"The Planet Where Nightmares Come True"

My Facebook feed is adorned with serious eye-candy this morning, a meme is doing the rounds prompting folks to post their favourite movie posters. I've been asked for my nomination and any reason to indulge in one's obsessions is always welcome. So today, I've chosen the British quad poster for Solaris. Tarkovsky's film has been blessed with several fine posters - Andrzej Bertrandt's austere design for the Polish release, and Renato Casaro's Italian poster which sidesteps the complexities of Tarkovsky's film in favor of a beautifully illustrated Boy's Own Sci-Fi adventure painting. Both good examples of just how differently the same film can be presented by its advertising materials. The British poster is my favourite though, dispensing with artwork entirely and featuring two striking stills from the film nicely overlaid with some barnstorming blurbs: "The Planet Where Nightmares Come True" and The Spectator's erroneous yet irresistible "Russia's answer to 2001". And I like the comment from the contemplative Daily Express critic: "Mindstorming in its implications"

One incidental thought... The tagline on the Solaris poster “The Planet Where Nightmares Come True…” felt oddly familiar to me and it seems I was thinking of the UK quad poster for Eraserhead which had the tagline “Where your nightmares end…” I thought this emphasis on nightmares might be some quaint English thing but a quick search reveals the German Eraserhead poster also features the same line: “Wo die ALPTRAUME enden…” I don’t believe the line is present on any of the original American posters.