Original Girdler, William Movie Posters

William Girdler movie posters from Grizzly (1976), Day of the Animals (1977), and The Manitou (1978) are among the more visually arresting items from 1970s American exploitation cinema — original theatrical paper from a Louisville-based director who completed eight features in five years before his death at thirty. In five years of feature filmmaking, Girdler completed eight productions including Grizzly (1976), the killer bear picture that became the highest-grossing independent film of its year, and Day of the Animals (1977), which leaned into environmental anxieties with considerable commercial effect. Shop original theatrical materials from these cult productions. Girdler began directing regional blaxploitation pictures in Louisville before moving into the national market, developing an instinct for finding commercial angles in the mid-1970s genre landscape. Abby (1974), his blaxploitation horror film, was a significant regional hit before legal pressure from Warner Bros. over similarities to The Exorcist resulted in its withdrawal from distribution. Girdler was killed in a helicopter accident in the Philippines in 1978 at the age of thirty, while scouting locations for a new production. Original posters from Girdler's productions carry the bold, provocative energy of 1970s drive-in cinema at its most unrestrained: sensationalist imagery, strong typographic design, and the visual promise of genre thrills delivered at speed. Grizzly materials in particular are consistently sought by collectors, and fine-condition first-release examples are genuinely scarce given the limited print runs of independent drive-in productions. Shop our Horror and Exploitation collections for related genre materials. All Film/Art Gallery movie posters and items are authenticated originals.