Movie posters are an enormously important part of selling a movie to audiences, and so many of them are considered works of art. However, sometimes the posters and art are just plain bad. Whatever Marvel was thinking with the Spider-Man: Homecoming poster comes to mind, but what's worse is when the poster has nothing to do with the movie.

Whether it's through misrepresentation or choosing to go with an image that gives an impression of the film instead of something that's actually in the film, something a lot of 1980s horror movies are guilty of, these are some of the most notable examples.

10 Whisper of the Heart (1995) Isn't About A Dapper Talking Cat Teaching A Girl To Fly

Whisper of the Heart poster

Yoshifumi Kondou's Whisper of the Heart is about a girl named Shizuku who has no real direction in life - she'd rather read books than study. She meets a boy named Seiji, and his dreams inspire her to follow her own ambitions and write a story. Hardly any of the imagery matches the film's main poster.

The inspiration for the poster actually comes from a scene at the end of the movie that illustrates a scene from the story Shizuku had written. It makes for a cute poster, but it barely touches on what the movie is actually about.

9 The Happening (2008) Is About Killer Plants, Not Menacing Buildings

The Happening

One of M. Night Shyamalan's weakest and most laughable films, The Happening is a horror movie where plants and trees fight back by releasing toxins that cause humans to kill themselves.

Starring Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel as a married couple trying to escape the plant toxins, it's odd that the movie's poster would show them huddled in the middle of a city with the buildings warped around them, making it seem like it's anything but murderous flora. But then again, Shyamalan is known for his twists.

8 Scrooged (1988) Isn't About Bill Murray Buddying Up With A Skeleton

scrooged poster

The story of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is as classic as it gets. But when you look at the movie poster for one of its many, many adaptations, Scrooged, it looks more like an alternate universe where Bill Murray joined Moonstruck and made it spooky.

There are elements from the film in the poster, like a skeleton (presumably the Ghost of Christmas Future) and Bill Murray smoking a big cigar like the TV exec he is. Still, there's nothing that indicates Christmas or Charles Dickens.

7 Dead Alive (1992) Goes For A Macabre Impression Over A Literal Image

Dead Alive

Considered by many to be the bloodiest movie of all time Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, AKA Braindead, is about a man trying to contain a zombie outbreak in his basement.

However, the movie poster, where a woman holds open her mouth with her hands to reveal a tiny skull with blue eyes, has little to do with the actual film besides alluding to a scene with a naughty baby zombie. The poster gives no indication that this is a zombie movie, just that it's macabre and a bit absurd.

Evil Dead poster

Similar to Dead Alive, the iconic movie poster for The Evil Dead has some elements but is still very different from the actual movie. The poster shows a hand bursting from the ground to grab onto a scantily-clad woman's throat as she struggles to escape.

The image is actually taken from a promotional photoshoot of the film where actress Bridget Hoffman stands in for Linda alongside Bruce Campbell as Ash. One could argue that it evokes the internal struggle of someone possessed by Evil, but that's a real stretch.

5 Saving Face (2004) Would Have You Think This Mother & Daughter Are In Love

Saving Face

The poster for Alice Wu's Saving Face is one of the biggest misrepresentations of a film. Despite the two women on the poster, one wearing a wedding dress and the other wearing street clothes, looking at each other like they could be in love, they're actually mother and daughter.

Saving Face is actually about a closeted lesbian who is at odds with her widow mother, who is pregnant and refuses to say who the father is. There is romance in the movie, but nothing like what's depicted on the poster.

4 Evil Dead II (1987) Has A Side-Eyeing Skeleton Instead Of Ash Or Any Deadites

Evil Dead 2

In what seems like a pattern, Sam Raimi's sequel to The Evil Dead also has a poster that has nothing to do with the actual movie. Evil Dead II is a kind-of remake, as the entire plot of the first movie (except it's only him and his girlfriend Linda at the cabin) recaps very quickly at the beginning of the film before moving on.

The poster doesn't reflect this at all. It features a simple close-up of a skeleton with brown eyes, which is an interesting choice.

3 Tremors (1990) Chose A Reference To Jaws Over A True Representation Of The Graboid

Tremors poster

While not a total misrepresentation of the film since there is a subterranean, worm-like creature called a Graboid that feeds off of human flesh, the poster for Tremors takes quite a bit of artistic liberty when depicting the worm.

Instead of what is shown in the movie, the poster depicts the deadly creature as an enormous monster that resembles the Graboid's small prehensile tentacles but with big T-Rex teeth. The poster is definitely an homage to the famous poster for Jaws, but at what cost?

2 Troll 2 (1990) Is A Total Bait-And-Switch Title & Poster

Troll 2

Considered one of the Worst Movies Ever Made, Troll 2 has garnered a cult following, where the film's poster (and even the title) having nothing to do with a movie only adds to its charm and notoriety.

First off, the movie isn't about trolls; it's about goblins. Second, it was only given the title Troll 2 to trick audiences into watching it, thinking they were seeing a sequel to 1986's Troll. Because of this, the movie's poster is meant to emulate the poster of Troll.

1 Mothra vs. Godzilla, AKA Godzilla vs. The Thing (1964) Would Have You Think That A T-Rex Was Fighting A Kraken

Godzilla vs the Thing wide

It's not uncommon for films to get completely different names when they're released internationally but also a completely misleading poster? That's a bit much. After the great success of Mothra and King Kong vs. Godzilla, it was decided that the next Godzilla movie would be Mothra vs. Godzilla.

However, it was decided that for the American edit of the movie, the title would instead be Godzilla vs. The Thing. The poster would tease an enormous tentacle monster fighting with a 1925 The Lost World version of Godzilla.