Shutter Island, J-Horror style

ATTN: Domestic poster designers
RE: Aura and Atmosphere
See how much more captivating a composition can be when you let those damned floating heads float out of the poster altogether, leaving viewers some moody room for imagination?

I love this Japanese poster so much, I’ll be giving one away as a prize for some sort of contest we’ll come up with the week Shutter Island opens.

UPDATE: Sorry to say, the poster contest might be months away, since Nikki Finke just broke with this horrific news:

SHOCKER! Paramount Moves Scorsese’s ‘Shutter Island’ To February 19, 2010… Such a surprise delay is just going to compound all the buzz surrounding the picture and its great trailer released in June. An insider tells me. “It tested in the high 80s/low 90s and Scorsese even brought it down to 2 hours.” So what’s the problem? I hear that Paramount told the filmmakers it doesn’t have the financing in 2009 to spend the $50M to $60M necessary to market a big awards pic like this.

That extraordinarily lame excuse is followed by a couple more reasons that sound just as ridiculous. I’m too bummed to say anything else.