OKLAHOMA CITY – Do you remember blood-sucking demons in “Get Out”? What about a gun-toting, “Die Hard”-ready Bruce Willis and a bearded, adult Haley Joel Osment in “The Sixth Sense”? Surely you remember pistols and explosions all over “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
No? Well, that’s only because you’re not remembering those films through the eyes, minds, and imaginations of some of Ghana’s hardest-working pop artists, who regularly turn out wild, extravagant, hand-painted posters for American films old and new, often without ever seeing a single frame beforehand.
The posters have become something of a pop-cultural tradition in the West African nation, and they’ve taken on a whole new life and appreciation among left-field film lovers here in the States thanks to Chicago’s Deadly Prey Gallery, a transcontinental traveling showcase and retailer for the artworks.
As Deadly Prey sets out on a DIY tour, bringing handmade posters and prints to spaces across the country for sale – with 100% of the profits going directly to the original artists back in Ghana – OKC’s own Oklahoma Film Exchange is readying to become a showroom for the bizarre artworks for one night only on February 24th.
“It really all started in the mid-80s with these traveling video clubs in Ghana,” Deadly Prey co-founder Brian Chankin told Free Press by phone from his home in Chicago ahead of the tour. “They would show movies in the more remote areas that maybe didn’t have electricity, and so it started out as this cottage industry where these video clubs would just have a truck, a gas powered generator, and then a TV or projector.”
The mobile video clubs eventually became wildly popular through screenings of American B-action movies, Indian comedies, and anything else they could get on video.
By the time there were multiple video clubs in the same towns all vying for audiences, they began employing local artists to hand-paint promotional posters for the movies they’d screen, often on short notice and with only some vague or abstract explanation of the film or its most outlandish scenes to guide them. Hence the heat-packing Ferris Bueller or a bloody, horror take on “Groundhog Day.”
And that’s how an unexpectedly niche and immensely fun, strange pop-art medium was born.
“Around 2012, I became really obsessed with the movie posters after seeing a book called ‘Ghanavision,’” Chankin explained. “I owned a video store at the time in Chicago, and I decorated the walls with all types of movie poster art, and so I was just hoping to get my hands on some of these. And that led to me meeting my partner, Robert Kofi.”
Kofi grew up in Ghana and worked in the mobile video clubs as a teenager, so he still knew a lot of the local artists there even after the clubs and the crazy posters starting falling out of fashion.
“Before I knew it, we were talking about starting a business out of nowhere,” Chankin said. “Once we got on social media and we started taking commissions, that’s when it really started taking off. Now we’ve got a team of ten artists in Ghana that take these commissions and they’re great, and we can make sure they’re getting paid like ten times better than they had been before.”
And that means that OKC fans and new initiates alike can get in on supporting the Ghanaian artists keeping this tradition alive when Chankin brings a selection of prints and hand-painted originals from Deadly Prey through the Oklahoma Film Exchange in Film Row for just one single evening Tuesday, February 24th.
Guests can browse the oddball, painterly depictions of everything from “Star Wars” and “RoboCop” to brand new commissions for current TV shows like “The Bear” and “I Think You Should Leave,” all while helping to support indie artists in Ghana and helping to bridge the gap between Oklahoma and Africa through nothing but the power of movie fandom.
“I mean, it’s just sort of a weirdo, fun collective where we have fun and we do what we want,” Chankin said. “But we just support the artists and make sure everyone makes a decent living and we get to maintain this cultural tradition and help it thrive and make sure that as long as these artists want to be working in this genre, they can.”
Chicago’s Deadly Prey Gallery will host a pop-up at the Oklahoma Film Exchange Tuesday, February 24th at 6pm.
For more, visit deadlypreygallery.com and oklahomafilmexchange.com.
Brett Fieldcamp is the owner and Editor in Chief of Oklahoma City Free Press. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly two decades and served as Arts & Entertainment Editor before purchasing the company from founder Brett Dickerson in 2026.
He is also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
