The Shining
This is the poster art for the Stanley Kubrick's psychological thriller, The Shining. With this poster Saul Bass manages to capture the sheer terror of the movie with color, texture and simple imagery - his trademark style. The color red is an emotionally intense color - it stimulates a faster heart rate and increases our breathing rate. Black tends to represent power: the color of villains. Bass uses these two colors effectively in this poster to create fear. The imagery does a great job at creating fear as well. The face trapped in the letter "T" looks startled and horrified. The graininess of the image gives the feeling of being lit by candle light from below. The "trapping" of the face in the "T" further creates the feeling of panic. This movie was one of the most frightening films I have ever seen and I believe that Bass captures the essence of it with this poster.
Source: Meggs, Philip, Six Chapters in Design, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 1997