The Horror Movie Poster Art of Enzo Sciotti

Italian artist Enzo Sciotti, who passed away in April 2021, always comes to mind during the scary season for me. His horror movie poster artwork, so lurid and lush, was filled with women in peril, knife-wielding maniacs, and grotesque creatures of the night. During his peak period in the 1970s through the 1980s, Sciotti illustrated countless horror movie posters, including many for Italian giallo films, the American slasher genre, and really anything else that called for stunningly evocative imagery that sometimes conveyed even more terror than the movies they were advertising.

I’ve long been a big fan of Sciotti’s work, so consider this pictorial post my long-overdue respects paid to one of the true masters of movie poster artwork.

Talk about lurid. This Italian poster art for David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) really dials into and ramps up the sleazy, voyeuristic appeal of the film.

Sciotti’s take on Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) is an eye-pleasing delight that successfully merges his giallo aesthetic with Craven’s Ghostface slasher. Even though her outfit here is a lot saucier than what she wears in the film, Neve Campbell’s facial likeness is captured nicely.

Silver Bullet (1985) is one of my favorite werewolf flicks and Sciotti’s poster art is a masterpiece.

A couple of chilling posters for Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (1981).

Another Fulci gore fest, The House By the Cemetery (1981).

I’m tossing in this non-horror art simply to remind you that Sciotti could handle any genre, including the James Bond in space genre. This poster art is so iconic. It sold me on the movie before I’d ever even seen it.

A beautiful poster for Joe Dante’s classic horror-comedy The ‘Burbs (1989).

Don’t Overlook this haunting poster for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).

Like any working artist, Sciotti did scads of work all over the place. This is a wildly over the top piece from the horror comic magazine Terror Blu, depicting what I can only surmise is a bleeding, orgasmic woman about to be caught in the midst of a full-scale nuclear attack. It’s insane. And awesome.

Bathed in neon light, this pistol-packing femme fatale with legs that go on for miles graced the poster for the Italian erotic dark comedy, Ne parliamo Lunedì (1990). I’ve never seen it, but as he always managed to do, Sciotti sure makes me want to see it, and then hang the poster on my wall.