If Paste’s recent list of the 100 most entertaining B movies is to be believed, there are a lot of lovers of low-budget, semi-coherent cinema out there. The perfect B movie may not be great in an objectively judged sense, but they hit us on a primal level, giving an audience exactly what they want to see in order to frighten, titillate or enthrall them in that moment. A great B movie is a people-pleaser.
Posters have always been a great part of the B-movie tradition. Sometimes featuring far better production values than the film in question, they’re the bait that was dangled in front of audiences to entice them to see that week’s most recently questionable strip of celluloid. Here are 20 of the most visually striking posters in B-movie history.