Top Ten Movie Taglines: C.C.C Issue #52

Top Ten Movie Taglines

I was looking at the poster for Captain America: Civil War, and as I read the three words at the top of the poster, above Tony Stark’s and Steve Rogers’ heads, “Divided we Fall”, I realized something. The art of the movie tagline has been lost in more recent years. When’s the last time you saw a truly great tagline on a movie poster? If there are examples, please tell me, because I must have missed them.

I’m counting down the ten best movie taglines I’ve come across. There are, in fact, a huge number of great ones out there, but these ten are my personal faves.

10. The 40 Year-Old Virgin: “The longer you wait the harder it gets.”

A good tagline should complement the title and give you an impression of what the movie will be like, and The 40 Year-Old Virgin tagline does both of these things. On a poster that, at first glance, is sort of simple, with then-largely-unknown actor Steve Carrel’s face smack dab in the center, the title is definitely what stood out to people who went to see it in 2005 and made Carrel a star, but the teaser poster, which features Carrel sitting at a bar, alone, surrounded by people making out, is the one with the great tagline. It’s a sample-size of the kind of humour at work in the movie, and for me, is actually a stronger selling point than the title, which does summarize the movie extremely well, but doesn’t make me laugh the same.   

9. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: “Who will survive, and what will be left of them?”

A tagline can be like a second title, in a sense, or a subtitle, and sum up what the movie is about, if the title hasn’t done so already. Often (but not always) you’ll read the title, and if it catches your eye, you’ll proceed to reading the tagline, but in this case, the tagline actually catches your eye first, and goes perfectly with the title. You know from the title alone that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is going to be a brutal and horrific movie, but I just love the question the tagline poses. It hints at the cannibalistic nature of the antagonists, and is something horror fans often ask themselves at the beginning of the movie: which one of these characters is actually going to make it through this? 

8. Jurassic Park: “An adventure 65 million years in the making.”

The reason this tagline works is because it sets up huge expectations, and the movie actually fulfills them. Steven Spielberg brought dinosaurs to life on the big-screen in a bigger and better way than anyone had before, but the poster and trailers kept the dinosaurs mostly hidden. The poster was how most people first glimpsed the now-famous logo, with the silhouette of the Tyrannosaurus skeleton and distinct font, and Spielberg cleverly placed the logo all throughout the movie, helping make it as iconic as it’s become, but aside from the logo, the poster is just black, with the tagline at the bottom, so you’re instantly drawn to it. It just makes the movie sound so good, and thankfully, it was.

7. The Shawshank Redemption: “Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free.” 

A big theme in The Shawshank Redemption, largely recognized as one of the best movies ever made, is that of hope. Andy Dufresne, a man wrongfully imprisoned after his wife is found murdered, is the physical embodiment of hope. We’re talking about a guy who spends over two decades concocting a prison escape, and (spoiler alert) he actually does it. This tagline, while it probably contributed to drawing in viewers, is even more powerful after you’ve seen the movie, but it really is a perfect encapsulation of what the movie is about, unlike the title (which director Frank Darabont later admitted is probably part of the reason it didn’t do as well initially at the box office). 

6. Apollo 13: “Houston, we have a problem.”

This famous line uttered in the film by Tom Hanks has become something of a household phrase, and referenced endlessly in other movies and TV shows. Chronicling NASA’s third lunar mission, the problems that occur, and its eventual need to abort, the tagline is perfect because it pushes the selling point of the movie, which is the dramatization of this real-life event, and what exactly happened that forced them to abort. It’s not only a phrase commonly said when facing imminent problems in day-to-day life, it’s impossible not to think of space exploration when you hear or say it. 

5. The Big Lebowski: “Her life was in their hands. Now her toe is in the mail.”

I wasn’t actually aware this was the tagline until I put together this list, but the second I heard it, I knew I had to include it. The Big Lebowski is not a movie for everyone (and that can be said of just about all of Joel and Ethan Cohen’s movies) but if you’re into the type of humour it features, there’s tons to love. This tagline, like the one for 40 Year-Old Virgin, sums up the movie and gives a taste of the type of humour. It’s definitely a black comedy, and if you’ve seen the movie, you know what particular element of the story it refers to (a hilarious one, I’ll add). The second part of the two-part line is unexpected, and also hints at what the main characters are like. There’s a lot going on in these measly thirteen words.   

4. The Thing: “Man is the warmest place to hide.”

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a truly horrific and nerve-racking sci-fi-horror-thriller. The title is more than a little vague, and the tagline on most of the posters, “The Ultimate in Alien Terror”, is not that great of a tagline (and not a true statement, as you’ll see by the number one spot on this list), but this alternate tagline brings up the disturbing concept behind the alien: it kills and replicates a person down to the microcell, so no one can tell who the thing is at any given moment. It also relates to the setting of the movie, the claustrophobic research center in the Antarctic tundra. It’s creepy, subtle, and hints at the terror to come.

3. Superman: “You’ll believe a man can fly.”

Though dated in many aspects by today’s standards, Superman was a monumental movie achievement, and the first serious big-budget take on a superhero. Back in the late seventies, people were curious how exactly they would portray the super-powered Kryptonian on the big-screen. How many special effects would they need? Did such effects even exist? Nowadays we’re so accustomed to cgi we take superheroes flying around for granted, but back then, no one had seen something like it in a convincing manner, and that’s why the tagline is so brilliant. People must’ve seen the poster, seen the Superman logo, then that tagline, and flipped out. Like Jurassic Park’s tagline, it sets huge expectations, and much the same way, it blew audiences away. 

 

2. Ghostbusters: “Who ya gonna call?” 

I know exactly what you said in your head after reading this tagline. Don’t worry, it’s inevitable. This is definitely the best example of a line from the movie becoming a famous tagline. More than that, Ghostbusters is a cultural icon, and the theme song in the movie is actually where the line comes from, none of the characters speak it. Even the Ghostbusters remake coming out this year is using the tagline, and those posters don’t even have the title Ghostbusters on them! Now that’s selling power: a tagline that poses a question so many people know the answer to, they don’t even need to put the answer/title on the poster. So what tagline could be better than that?

1. Alien: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” 

When I originally thought to do this list of great movie taglines, the first one I thought of was from Alien. It tops most of the best movie tagline lists, and for good reason. Let’s start with the title. It’s deceptively unassuming. Alien? What kind of alien? Like the friendly ones in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Hell no. This is a horror movie through and through, it just happens to take place in space. And the worst thing about space? In this case, it’s summed up with the tagline. It’s a horrifying concept, but so enticing. What kind of space alien would make you wish people could hear you scream in space? Once you see it, you get it. The alternate tagline, the significantly lesser-used “Just One Can Kill Seven”, doesn’t hold a candle to the one nearly everyone knows today. Alien has the quintessential movie tagline, and all other movie marketers can only hope of coming up with something as clever and original as that. 

Tremors (1990): Favourite Films Series

Tremors (1990): Favourite Films Series

 

At first glance, Tremors looks like an average B-movie with a silly monster and a cast of characters you won’t care about. That’s the impression the poster, home video cover, and trailer all give. What the poster does do well is convey the basic premise: an underground monster is trying to eat some people in a desert town. That’s what first attracted me to the movie when I was just a kid, but it holds up to this day, and that’s because it goes beyond the simple concept indicated by the poster, but also executes its monster movie concept flawlessly.

I watched Tremors for the first time on TV when I was about eleven, ironically while eating a plate of leftover spaghetti—such an appropriate coincidence, because when I asked my mom what it was about as I slurped up the worm-like noodles, she said it was about giant killer worms. Her summary was accurate, too. Think Jaws but on land, and prehistoric worm monsters instead of a shark (going back to the poster, it’s very comparable to the poster of Jaws). The original title for this movie was in fact Land Sharks, but the script was reworked (for the better, I’m sure). The premise is pretty straight forward, but what makes it unique are the characters and the setting. It’s not only a great creature feature, but a surprisingly smart one. Of course, I didn’t notice that until re-watching it years later. 

The town of Perfection, Nevada is barely a town. It’s a few trailers and houses and a general store, but for a group of quirky characters, it’s home. The two main characters are Val and Earl, played by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, who don’t want to live in Perfection anymore, so they decide to pack up and leave, but they end up trapped there after they discover the one road that leads out of the valley in which the town is situated has been blocked by fallen rocks. They also discover some kind of subterranean creature is killing and eating people. Rhonda, a seismologist student working nearby, finds out there are more than one of these creatures, so the townsfolk group together and try to figure out a way to escape, which in any normal town would be pretty straight forward, but Perfection is literally in the middle of a desert, and the creatures are quickly learning their survival tricks.  

Tremors is a one-of-a-kind creature feature. It delivers on the monster action and character development in equal portions, and despite being about monstrous prehistoric worms trying to eat people, is really clever, upbeat, and funny. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward have great chemistry together, and the dialogue is witty and smart. The only character I would single out as being really annoying is the young boy, who jokes about the killer worms in the first half then is a wuss the rest of the movie, but to be fair, that’s the whole point of his character, and he only has a minor part. Everyone else is great, and you actually root for them to live. They aren’t idiots, either. There’s no one making obvious mistakes or stupid decisions out of fear like in a generic horror movie. For instance, it doesn’t take the main characters long to figure out the creatures can’t go through rock, and that’s just the start of them figuring out how to outwit these ancient beasts. 

Typically in a great monster movie, be it Jaws or Alien or King Kong, we get a basic amount of information about the monster, but they are never focused on too heavily, either from a screenwriting standpoint or visual standpoint. In Tremors, we actually get a good look at the creature, in a scene that’s both interesting and hilarious. After accidentally crashing into a concrete barrier and killing itself, the characters clear away the broken concrete to examine its smashed head and dig up the dirt around its body (“I found the ass-end!” Kevin Bacon remarks). We get a full look at the creatures, which become known as “graboids” (a name I was never a huge fan of, I usually just refer to them as the "Tremors' Worms"), and get an idea of how they work. They have spikes on their bodies that help them move, snake-like grabbers within their larger beak-like mouth (hence the name graboid), and oozy-red blood. It’s not an overly complicated creature design, but it works, and would be expanded on in subsequent sequels. 

Sometimes a movie monster gets over-explained, which makes it less scary, but here, it’s just the right amount. The graboids are underground most of the time, so they’re still scary, because they can sense the vibrations of things moving above ground, and just like how the shark’s presence is known by the barrels moving along the ocean surface in Jaws, you know the graboids are coming by all sorts of ways: dirt moving, dust billowing, things falling over, things being sucked into the ground, etc. 

 

But that doesn’t mean the graboids don’t get their chance to shine. They make a few impressive kills, and one famous scene in the bunker of the town’s two survivalists/gun nuts shows off the impressive special effects better than any other. PG-13 horror movies can often feel softened or censored, but here it is not a detriment, and that’s largely because it’s not a straight-up horror show. The characters acknowledge, to a degree, the absurdity of their situation, and they’re always joking with each other or being sarcastic, which lightens the mood. There’s a moment early on when Earl curses in front of Rhonda, then says “Pardon my French.” Later on, when they’re on the rooftop of the general store trying to figure out how to get past the graboids, she curses, they look at her, and she says, “Pardon my French.” It’s these little moments that give the characters, and by default the entire movie, so much personality.  

Tremors is definitely what you would call a cult film, because it didn’t make a ton of money at the box office in 1990, but it found greater success on home video and TV. It holds up well, too, thanks to high-quality practical effects and the remote setting—honestly, it looks like it could be set anywhere from the 1970’s to early 2000’s (but for the record, is set in the late 80’s/early 90’s, as far as I know). There were many sequels and one prequel, but they were all home-video releases, and none of them live up to the quality of the first movie. 

Tremors is a fun but smart monster movie with undeniable personality and original creatures that still hold up. If you enjoy this movie as much as I do, consider checking out the sequels; at least the second and third. They don’t have as many memorable, original characters, or plots that are nearly as intelligent, but the character Burt Gummer played by Michael Gross returns for all of them, and the evolution of the graboids is entertaining and over-the-top, the highlight being the "assblasters" from part three.