10 best Horror Movie Taglines ever

October 28, 9:35 AMMovie ExaminerJason Roestel

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If I had to slap a tagline on this column it would be - Taglines... The other write meat... 

I guess the most significant questions concerning the tagline is what does it do for a film? And does it actually work? One little blurb, usually written on the film's poster, is somehow supposed to sum up the theme of the film, or brand the film in question even further into our collective memory. I'd point out that with a movie like Alien and its mythical tagline In space no one can hear you scream the tagline transcends its position in the game of movie marketing, and does become something greater than just a blurb. Alien's tagline is so good in fact that I left it off the following list because it's just too easy and obvious.

In the business of taglining film no other genre is more crafty, or more sleazy than the horror movie genre. So I searched the net high and low, (mostly low) to find 10 great horror movie taglines. These are the lines I appreciated the most...

10) Sleepy Hollow- Heads Will Roll... Simple. Direct. To the point. In fact more to the point then anyone waiting to see this 1999 Tim Burton film could have ever possibly imagined. Many more heads rolled in this horror movie than most of us thought Tim Burton had in him.

9) Zombie Honeymoon- In sickness and in health... That about sums up this nice little film about a young bride coming to terms with her new husband's sudden overpowering hunger for human brains. Great little zombie movie, great little tagline.

8) Frankenhooker- A Terrifying Tale of Sluts and Bolts... Nice work tagline team! I'm sure the movie is gold-plated crap but that tagline sure sells Frankenhooker to me.

7) The Thing- Man is the warmest place to hide... Most people assume this is the tagline for Brokeback Mountain. Let me finally be the one to set the record straight, no pun intended. John Carpenter's The Thing is the origin of this fantastically perverse tagline, and if you have seen this 1982 film it does indeed make sense.

6) Seed of Chucky- Get a LOAD of Chucky... First off, the Chucky film series tagline team receives the gold medal for creating the most obvious, most sexually retarded, and easily the most basic formula taglines ever created. The Bride of Chucky gave us Chucky gets Lucky in 1998. Seed of Chucky expresses his sexual campaign in the easiest terms available. 

5) Pet Sematary- Sometimes dead is better... I'm pretty sure that this is a line from the Stephen King novel. In fact I'm positive it is. Great line. Sub-par film translation. I'd add that Sometimes the book is better...

4) From Dusk Till Dawn- Vampires. No Interviews... Great line. Especially for anyone else back in 1996 who was getting really tired of vampires being cast as hopeless romantics dressed in Liberace's wardrobe. All thanks to the Anne Rice novels of course.

3) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre- Who will survive and what will be left of them? If the title of this infamous 1974 horror flick didn't frighten you into/away-from seeing it, then the tagline sure helped make up your mind.

2) Army of Darkness- Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas... This tagline has always been a winner. It says so much about the Evil Dead series as it does it's third, and quite possibly un-final, film in the franchise. This tagline is just so... Just so... Bruce Campbell?

1) Teeth- Every rose has its thorn... Pretty basic huh? Yeah they ripped a line off from a classic Poison song. But it's a great line to rip-off. And once you realize that the movie Teeth is about a young girl who has another set of teeth located just inside the "bathing suit" area - you might just get the joke. Outstanding work Teeth tagliners! I'm sure there were probably thousands of ideas you guys spitballed during the tagline pitch session, I'm thinking of a few myself, (Love bites could work, plus it brings Def Leppard fans into the fold... did I just say into the fold???) but you guys went the more poetic route and found that perfect sentence to sell your movie with... Ghastly anatomical premise and all...