In an astonishing feat of laziness, Amazon Prime Video service has adorned the iconic 1922 horror film “Nosferatu” with a slapdash poster that was obviously generated using AI.
The poster — first discovered by eagle-eyed netizens last fall and resurfaced as Robert Eggers’ remake of the beloved classic wows critics in theaters — turns the vampire Count Orlok’s monstrous visage into a yassified rendition with a strangely slender body, his harrowing appearance replaced with an aesthetic straight out of a “Twilight” movie.
To add suck further blood out of the original’s legacy, its iconic use of typography was exchanged for a font that closely resembles Papyrus, a typeface so widely hated that it spawned its own series of “Saturday Night Live” sketches.
In other words, it’s exactly the kind of uninspired slop you’d expect an AI image generator to spit out. It’s a sign of the times — highlighting a worrying trend as companies like Amazon continue to undermine the work of human artists by leaning into cheapo AI.
The online reaction to the insipid art was resoundingly negative.
“A horrible one-two punch of anti-art sentiment,” tweeted podcast host Danny Vegito.
“Amazon Prime is using generative AI to replace movie posters for iconic films that already exist and already have posters they could use,” artist Jon Neimeister, who worked on the hit video game “Hearthstone,” wrote in a Bluesky post earlier this week. “Not only are we forced to see this shit everywhere, but they’re overwriting art history with it.”
Other users pointed out that despite years of technological advancements in the generative AI space, the image is riddled with conspicuous technical issues.
“God, that looks horrible,” another Bluesky user responded. “His finger is melting into his clothing. Three years of hype and it still CAN’T DO FINGERS.”
Other users pointed out that the oversized Moon in the background mysteriously blocks the clouds behind it.
A stark line that runs vertically through the background also suggests a lazy Photoshop job unbefitting for a movie of such repute.
Worse yet, as plenty of others argued, the 1922 classic has its own highly creative and original marketing material that could’ve been used or adapted instead.
There’s a good chance Amazon was trying to cash in on the hype surrounding the most recent interpretation of “Nosferatu,” which stars Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok. A quick scan on an Amazon Prime section titled “Horror movies” shows the sloppy poster featured prominently, suggesting the tech giant was attempting to fit the vintage movie in with B-level drivel or trick users into thinking they were looking at the new version.
The kerfuffle is particularly ironic considering that the original 1922 film was itself accused of being an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.” The minor changes, such as renaming Count Dracula to Count Orlok, were glaring to the point that Stoker’s widow sued the makers of the 1922 movie for copyright violation.
But in spite of efforts to destroy remaining prints, the movie’s eerie qualities were undeniable, and it became a classic in its own right (like “Dracula” before it, the film fell into the public domain several years ago.)
One thing’s for sure: Amazon’s tacky poster is unlikely to ever attain the cachet of “Nosferatu” and its iconic imagery — unless it’s reappropriated by future screenings in a mocking fashion, that is.
As the use of generative AI continues to encroach on virtually every aspect of our daily lives, we should expect to encounter more bargain-basement reskins like this one — at least until consumers rebel at human creativity being buried under a deluge of AI slop.
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