Jay Allen Sandford's ongoing feature “Famous Movie Poster Rejects You've Never Seen” at the San Diego Reader website focuses on a collection of rare unused and/or early-stage artwork for dozens of classic (and not-so-classic) movies, including many horror titles you'll recognize from the final product... and a few amazing concepts that never made it.
The collection of original paintings and proof prints were once archived by Sandford for memorabilia Duane Dimock, and he recently posted some of his favorites to the Reader site.
The collection runs the spectrum from Hollywood blockbusters to lesser-known indies, and very few of these have been seen by the public. Some are compared side-by-side with the final approved versions, showing the work in progress.
The gallery is brimming over with familiar genre titles, including Jaws, Batman, Deadly Friend, The Fly, Fright Night, Halloween III, Vamp, Return of the Living Dead, Blood Diner, Trick or Treat (the '80s heavy metal horror flick, not to be confused with anthology Trick R Treat), Little Shop of Horrors, Deadly Blessing, and my personal fave of the bunch, Near Dark... including an unused image that later showed up in a foreign-release poster for Friday the 13th Part 5!
Visit theSan Diego Reader site for the full gallery... it's huge!