Glamour and Gore - Together Again: ILM Halloween Party Invitations

Steve writes:

Company holiday parties are a long-standing tradition. They offer hard-working, by-the-book employees a semi-sanctioned opportunity to cut loose, throw back a few cocktails, and say/do things they normally wouldn't at a staff meeting on proper email usage at 2:30pm on a Tuesday.

With the odds of awkward encounters with costumed and inebriated coworkers at their highest, Halloween parties may be the penultimate workplace holiday setting for things to just get weird, for better or worse. What we have here are a selection of invitations to ILM's annual Halloween Party. Each are viewable in the Archive Database, but it's kind of fun to see them all together in one place.

1998 ILM Halloween BASH!

This first invitation from 1998 represents a neat play on the Eerie comic series that ran from March 1966 to February 1983. Poor Vader gets his head smashed by a Martian as Leia shrieks in horror.

The next two feature a familiar scorned Gungan paired with often parodied horror films, The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Poltergeist (1982). I feel like not incorporating the old LucasArts stick-figure logo with the former was somewhat of a missed opportunity. By 2001, it seems that they've fully embraced Jar Jar's maligned status in our popular culture.

2000 - The Lucas Halloween Project

2001 - Episode II: It knows what scares yousa.

This Yoda/Exorcist mash-up from 2002 may be my favorite of the group, perhaps because Yoda still retains somewhat of a puppet-like appearance and I've always been a fan of the poster that inspired it. I vividly remember seeing The Exorcist for the first time when it was theatrically re-released in 2000, and at that time the tagline "The Scariest Movie Of All Time Has Returned" (as seen on this poster) rang true for me.

2002 - THE F/XORCIST

Invitations from 2003 and 2004 were a little more generic, but still charming. The droid jack-o-lanterns in the latter are particularly amusing. Threepio definitely has a vintage Droids look about him.

2003 Annual ILM Halloween Party

2004 Annual ILM Halloween Party

This final invitation from 2008 is unrivaled in terms of style. The pulp novel look is pretty brilliant. If anyone knows what may have been the specific inspiration for this one, let us know in the comments.

2008 Annual ILM Halloween Party

ILM invitations from the collection of Gus Lopez