Criterion teases Repo Man, Scanners, The Devil’s Backbone and many more horror titles!

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Ordinary f—ing people, man. There’s no way they could decipher the films being teased in Criterion’s 2013 “Wacky New Year’s Art.” At the end of every year the company teases its upcoming slate of releases with an “interpret the artwork” style cartoon, the kind of thing you might find in an issue of Highlights For Children if it was taken over by a bunch of cinephiles. This year promises quite a few goodies, including several in our sci-fi/horror wheelhouse.

Among the genre titles Criterion fans are spotting: Alex Cox’s REPO MAN, Guillermo del Toro’s THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, Roman Polanski’s THE TENANT, David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD and David Cronenberg’s SCANNERS. Some are also interpreting the building cartoon itself to be a hinting a re-release of David Cronenberg’s long out of print debut SHIVERS (aka THEY CAME FROM WITHIN).

While you can’t regard the doodle as an official announcement (especially for that SHIVERS prediction), most of these hints are so apparent you can almost guarantee them. As such, I would probably suggest getting ready to upgrade any of the titles in your collection as Criterion will likely knock them out of the goddamned park in terms of technical specs and extras. Check out the cartoon below and, if you see any genre pics we may have missed, feel free to talkback with the errors. After all, geeking out over Criterion teases is a team sport.