At Flashbak: The Movie Monsters of Summer '79

This week at Flashbak, I also remembered the summer of ’79, when two very different movie monsters premiered on the silver screen.

Here’s a snippet, and the url (http://flashbak.com/movie-monsters-summer-79-62055/ )

“Although it wasn’t entirely evident at the time, the horror movie genre reached a major crossroads in 1979. Two monster films would premiere that summer and wage a war not just for box office supremacy, but for the future trajectory of the format.

I became aware of these two movie monsters of 1979 only by accident. I was in a Ben Franklin store in Wisconsin, I believe, while on a six-week cross-country trip with my family. 

Over in the book section were two scary titles: Prophecy by David Seltzer and Alien by Alan Dean Foster.  

Both books were based on film screenplays, and their packaging or publicity carried important similarities.

For example, both films (and books) were advertised with images of monstrous, misshapen, monster eggs.

In both cases, something terrible was going to hatch…

Prophecy (released August 22, 1979) was described as “The Monster Movie,” suggesting its singular nature. And the ad copy read: “She Lives. Don’t Move. Don’t Breathe. There’s Nowhere to Run. She Will Find You.”

Alien (released June 22, 1979), by contrast, was advertised with the immortal, and much snappier ad-line: “In space, no one can hear you scream...”

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