The Shock-O-Rama Poster Show 2025 Special Edition #1

Welcome back to the Shock-O-Rama Poster Show. This is a special edition of the poster show. There are no new additions listed. This is about me trying to go through all of the rolled posters I did not have tucked away yet… And the disastrous mess it caused.

Last spring, when I was recovering from my cancer surgery, I decided to go through all of the rolled posters I had in tubes that had not been tucked away into my flat files. Oh my God… What a foolish and disastrous undertaking this proved to be. (And I have the really awfully photographed documentation to prove it!)

I soon had posters all over the place. In my living room in my TV room and in my dining room. There were posters everywhere.

In addition to deciding, which posters to frame for future inclusion on my walls… As soon as I have some free wall, space… I purchased two of the poster-sized portfolios from Baroque Portfolios. 

I threw in several posters. I knew these posters would never adorn my walls, because there’s only so much wall space. But I still wanted to see them occasionally without having to dig through my flat files… Which are full and to the bursting point! These portfolios actually are rather handy… Except they are so dang large and are heavy. I still haven’t quite figured out where to store them yet, but it’s nice to know that they are there and filled with poster goodness.

Here is a look through the first book. The posters are in no order. I just shoved in posters as I found them. These aren’t my best posters nor my worst…just ones that I like. 

Here is a look through the second book. Again, it’s just random stuff, some Thai posters, horror, etc. 

But the portfolio’s can only hold so many posters. I still had hundreds and hundreds to sort through. They were soon taking over the whole house.

I tried my best to sort them. Which ones would I put in the for sale pile? Which ones would I hang onto for future investments? Which ones were utter crap? Which ones would I try to stuff into the flat files even though they are full? 

There were just so many. And when I would turn around, there would be more tubes that needed to be emptied. Where are I gonna put all these, I wondered. I just kept putting them wherever I could find space to see what I had, and to see which ones I really wanted to display.

Some posters, I had absolutely no memory of ever buying… Or seeing.

Although I have lived in this house for three years now, my dining room still has boxes surrounding the walls from my move. The rest of the house is pretty much together, but my dining room mess still remains. My first winter here, I escaped to California and Nevada and stayed with friends in the Bay Area, Las Vegas, Southern, California, and Central California. The second winter I was here I was planning on going through these boxes and getting rid of crap… But that was way laid when I got my cancer diagnosis this summer before and I started undergoing chemo treatments. As I was recovering from my cancer surgery last January, the boxes were out of the question because I really couldn’t do much with the big scars on my abdomen where they removed my stomach and part of my esophagus. So the posters kind of found themselves being scattered across the boxes in my dining room. 

Not to be out done, my living room was overrun as well.

But the real horror really was my dining room. I don’t use my living room much so it didn’t bother me as much. But my dining room… Despite the boxes I’m in there quite a bit. And suddenly my table had been taken over

 And then the posters started lining up on the floor…

My stars! They just kept multiplying… And taking over more space.

Eventually, spring started giving away to Summer and guests started arriving. Somehow, I had to clean the mess up. A lot of it did get stuffed into the flat files… Somehow. A lot of of it… I don’t know where it went. Ha.

Although I already had some posters up on the walls (I have previously shared the posters I hung in my bedroom not long after I first moved here, as well as the light boxes in my TV area), I managed to find room for more. This Canadian double feature for THE POSSESSION OF VIRGINIA and  THE EXORCISM OF HUGH is not much of a poster… And the films are not great at all.

However, because of its smaller size, it fit the space perfectly and up it went.

I also managed to hang a few other posters. This is the one sheet for Ted V. Mikel’s’ awful THE CORPSE GRINDERS. This is a case of the poster being better than the film. Ha!

This rare video poster for CARNIVAL OF SOULS Found a home on a wall that was just wide enough for it.

In the living room, I hung up several. Here is the original Italian poster for Mario Bava’s BARON BLOOD. 

To the left of that, I have ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN and a three-sheet for CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN. 

To the right of BARON BLOOD is PSYCHO. 

Despite the glare from the windows, I love seeing my posters up in my living room room.

The superior one sheet for the Boris Karloff rerelease chiller ISLE OF THE DEAD is also in the living room. It sits on one side of the main window looking out.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN is on the other side of the main window.

I also have my INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS  Tucked away in the living room. 

At the moment, because I will eventually be turning the upstairs into its own apartment, I only have a couple of posters that are on the wall.From 1937, it’s THE MAN WHO CRIED WOLF that hangs in the master bedroom

This is a 1956 rerelease of KING KONG. It also currently adorns the master bedroom upstairs.

My Italian 1966 rerelease of KING KONG is in the dining room.

Also on one of the few vacant walls in the dining room that were not covered with boxes, I hung up my DRACULA’S DAUGHTER re-release poster. She gives you that weird feeling… Doesn’t she? Ha! 

I framed many posters. However, without adequate wall space for them, I had to tuck them away where I could. This batch ended up in a hall closet.

These framed posters are also waiting for a home on the walls. They are tucked away under the table that holds one of my flat files.

And this unfortunate batch lives a life of shame. They don’t have a home. They divides their time from sitting in the hallway or hiding in the laundry closet. They live in the laundry closet when guests come over. The rest of the time  they sit in the hallway, just leaning against the wall… so I can do laundry and not worry about the moisture ruining the posters.

Just across from the laundry room and next to the pantry, there was more wall space. That meant, I could hang more posters. The one on top is a poster. I was actually commissioned to make using my mail art style as a basis.

Below that, I had the poster for cheesy drive-in caveman saga EEGAH starring Richard Kiel. Kiel was best known latter in life for playing the villain Jaws in the James Bond films THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER. 

Years ago, I had interviewed Kiel At his home in Clovis California. During the interview, I remember he took pictures with me and he signed an autograph photo. I remember remembered that he signed a James Bond/Jaws photo.… But I had forgotten all about him signing a photo from EEGAH! When I came across it, I was delighted and had to add it above the poster.

I’m not sure if I have shared these before or not. I have several posters leading down the stairs to my tiki room. This first one is SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD.

Looking down the stairwell, you can see The one sheets for SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF, THE GIANT LEECHES, and BRIDES OF BLOOD.

The slimy jungle horrors represented by these posters made, I thought, nice atmosphere pieces as you work your way down to the tiki bar… known as Monster-A-GoGo’s Gruesome Grotto

B-movie poster art for a b-movie quality tiki bar. Pretty groovy.

Just outside of the tiki bar itself, there will be a faux cave wall. On the wall will hand this poster, JUNGLE HEADHUNTERS. 

In the nook under the stairs is a sitting area just across from the entrance to the bar. Tucked away behind the peacock chair and the foliage is a three sheet poster for FROM HELL IT CAME. 

In June, 2024, I mailed some posters off to be linenbacked. I hated to do it, but they needed help. I detailed that whole saga here.

 The restored posters arrived in August. That was about the time I fell into my cancer drama and sort of disappeared from the world for months. 

Then, on May 7th of this year, I had an email with MALIBU HORROR STORY in the subject line. Huh?

Hello Shawn, 
Your poster has been backed and restored, please let us know what insurance you would like to put on the shipment and the return address.
Thank you! 
Marie

What? Could this be correct? It was nearly a year later. I had been told they would be unable to linen back the poster. I had found other copies since then and had told them just to trash it. I forgot all about it. But this email was… a total surprise. I was confused and sent a note back. I received yet another note from the owner, Dan Mills, himself.

As to your poster, I wouldn't recommend linen backing a double sided poster, but the artists fit it into the schedule and I forgot to tell them not to back it.

However, the risk paid off and the poster looks really nice... we will ship it early next week... insurance costs $2.25 per $100 coverage and you get $100 standard... let me know how much you want. 

Thanks, Dan Miles, Backingtothefuture. 

Zowie! They really had linenbacked it. Okay…So wanted or not, needed or not, it was on its way. 

They did a nice job. I can see the repair, but of course I know where to look. 

They also included a certificate again, stating they had linenbacked and restored the poster.

It was all very unexpected, but all is well that ends well. 

I also started hanging some posters wherever I had space that allowed them. I took some of the smaller John Waters pieces I had, framed them and stuck them in a narrow space on the kitchen wall. I do have a picture of John Waters and I that I would like to maybe hang above the FEMALE TROUBLE piece.  I also intend to frame some Odorama cards from POLYESTER and hang those below the French FEMALE TROUBLE poster. 

I also took some of my smaller pieces of gutter auteur Andy Milligan’s work and stuck them on a smaller wall. 

I found a source of relatively cheap posters…and went a bit overboard. Oops!!!

I’ve since cooled down my shopping as the quality of posters has been…questionable. I also have encountered my first dealing with tariffs first hand after buying some things from Canada. And, of course, the tube the posters came in was a bit smashed and had been cracked open. Swell…  There were only a couple of things in the tube, but yes, they did have damage.

Finally, during my big poster… What shall I call it? My big poster disaster last spring when I had everything torn apart… I came across two batches of posters I had gotten from ha.com. Both lots came to me messed up. Like they’ve been crushed or something. They had these big folds in them. Randomly. I had tried to flatten them in California before I moved. It didn’t work. I tried to do it here as well. It didn’t work. So, for these two lots of already kind of ruined posters. , I decided to try something else. I put them in bags and stuck them under a rug. One set was in the living room by the TV.

I pulled it out more than seven months later. It still had the strange, smashed in folds.  They looked a little better, but yhr folds were still there.

The other batch, I had under the carpet in the dining room for the last seven months or so.

The folds were still there as well, but they weren’t nearly as bad as the other poster lot. Having them under the rug was risky. I didn’t know if people walking on them would ruin them further or what. I took a chance. If they got ruined further, so be it. If they were fine, hooray. Having people walk on them didn’t seem to mess them up anymore than they already were. That was fortunate at least. I just wished they had gotten flat like I wanted them to be.

And that is enough, don’t you think? Blah blah, blah blah blah. The sad thing is, I still haven’t gone through all of my posters. My flat files are full. I still have tubes and boxes in my closet. I just have too many posters. C’est la vie. Thanks for visiting the page. And thanks for reading along. I know this has been rather monotonous.

Cheers