What makes this poster particularly effective to me is the way in which the image of the island has been edited to take the appearance of several different snippets of a picture put together hastily. This has a jarring and eerie effect and is in itself a memorable image, and it also establishes the detective concept within the story and connotes the idea of the film being a puzzle. The use of a match by Leonardo DiCaprio's face - an image which establishes intimacy - contrasts with the wide shot of the island and water surrounding it, giving him a vulnerable quality.
This poster generally has a feel of being clean and controlled - however, the cracks in the face of Natalie Portman's character are a nice touch as to me as they are not overdone, but are noticable and prominent in contrast to the clean look of the rest of the poster. They are highly suggestive of the cracking of her psyche, which is a major theme in the film, and are something which not many posters posess. The font also appeals to me strongly - it is neat and modern, but the wide lettering gives it a subtly baroque and dramatic feeling.
The reflection of the character of Patrick Bateman in his knife is highly suggestive of his psychopathically violent alternate persona - the poster as a whole has a clean, elegant look due to the way in which Bateman is dressed and the lighting of the picture - however, the tagline, referring to 'monsters' and the typeface on 'Psycho' feel like they belong in a different poster to the picture of Bateman within it, which reflects how shocking the film is when Bateman goes from being a Wall Street Yuppie type to a sadistically violent killer.
This poster appeals to me as every aspect of it, including the title and even the film festival accolades, tie in to the film itself, as they are written in the character of Leonard's scrawling handwriting. The infinite images are a particularly nice touch as they are very commanding and make you want to look at the poster for ages to take it in, and the way in which both pictures are slanted, giving the poster an even more twisted and rough look, is the finishing touch for me.
There are many aspects to this poster which give it an unconventional, 'cult' quality. Firstly, the pictures of the two main characters are rather goofy despite being composed and high-quality - Brad Pitt has a wide grin with a rough and beaten face, whilst Edward Norton's more somber and controlled face almost feels deliberate and over the top in comparison. Furthermore, the title itself is a striking and individual image, which means that it feels as evocative of the actual film as possible.
The fact that the face is shown very close up for a poster has a haunting effect - very little is established aside from this eerie image which makes the audience ask questions about the nature of the film. The moth with death's head on it, and in particular the way it covers the person's mouth, gives the poster a highly evil and twisted quality - if one looks closely, they can also notice that death's head is in fact built up of naked human figures and based on a portrait by Salvador Dali. This is another poster to use optical illusions, and like the one for Memento it causes the audience to unflinchingly stare at the poster.
The use of lighting in this poster is particularly important - the lights on the two sides of his face have a mysterious, ghostly glow which is fitting for the theme of the story. The way in which the number '6' is formed of the same light that shines on Bruce Willis gives the same haunting effect of something spectral being present within the story, as does the large amount of black within the poster: it denotes vulnerability and lack of security within the story, as there is no sense of location within the poster.
The way in which the characters are presented sideways has a jarring effect on the audience and gives the poster as a whole a feeling of being off-center and imbalanced. This reflects the twisted development of the character of Kevin, and almost asks the audience to look at the poster from a different angle - something which could be symbolic of the different angles there are to the main ambiguity of the story, which is whether Kevin's own psyche or the way in which he was raised caused him to commit murders.
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