These two posters for Jack the Giant Slayer and Side Effects respectively feature a big stone face and stellar promotional design

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Two posters, two markedly different movies, two strangely accurate ways to tie these to films together.  A side effect of giant slaying can be death (and other such painful results), whilst the struggle to surmount the side effects of prescription medication (and/or an addiction to said medication) can be as painful and terrifying as an attempt to slay a giant.  Funny how that works out, despite these films being so disparate.

Or maybe I’m just reaching.

JACK THE GIANT SLAYER, Bryan Singer’s last bow before his return to the world of mutants, once again elects to sidestep the idea of putting any of the titular giants on its promotional art in favor of demonstrating their scale in a different way.  In case you didn’t catch the latest trailer, what you’re seeing below is Jack himself in the mouth of one of the many massive stone faces that litter the rim of the giants’ realm. 

The poster is obviously attempting to sell audiences on both the ancient, mythical strangeness of Jack’s adventure and the scale in which it will be enacted – but does it work?

If you’re hoping to hunt down JACK THE GIANT SLAYER, then make sure to mark March 1st on your calendar.

And on the other side of the scale is the new poster for what is (in theory) Steven Soderbergh’s last feature film bow (he has HBO’s BEHIND THE CANDELABRA still to come), and it’s a refreshing slice of simple effectiveness. 

The combination of the arresting ROSEMARY’S BABY-style photo in the top half and the subject matter-inspired text in the lower half works wonders, showing people at once what the film deals with while still capturing their attention through Rooney Mara’s haunted stare.  While I am firmly entrenched in the belief that she absolutely should have won an Oscar last year, I take some small comfort in the fact that SIDE EFFECTS looks for all intents and purposes to be the start of a long post-nomination run of quality work from the young actress.

You can catch SIDE EFFECTS on February 8th.