Teaser Poster for Kevin Smith's RED STATE

As a Halloween gift to us all, Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats) has released the teaser poster for his upcoming indie horror film Red State. Amazingly, Smith just completed filming three days ago - but last night at the wrap party (which he threw at his own home for the entire cast and crew) he was able to show a finished cut of the film to the people who worked on it. He claims that feat has never before been accomplished, and I have no reason to doubt the validity of that statement; usually it takes months after the final day of filming to have a viewable cut pieced together, but since Smith himself edited the movie while he was shooting it, he was able to (probably) break new ground.

There's another cool part - the poster above (which Smith calls "The Holy Ghost") wasn't designed by an ad agency, it was created by a producer's assistant named Melissa Bloom. Smith has totally embraced the independent nature of this project - the budget is only $4 million and he took a huge pay cut to direct it - and he loved the concept of having someone who was on set every day and had an insight into the actual vibe of the movie design the poster instead of sending it off to some agency where it had to go through a multi-step approval process.

Red State is aiming for a release at next year's Sundance Film Festival (which I'm hoping to attend for the first time with our very own Dr. Venkman), so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming trailers and such as we approach the end of the year. Read more about the teaser poster and Smith's thoughts on the marketing at his blog, My Boring Ass Life.