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Lots of movies have easter eggs hidden in them. Starting with delightful hidden references in Pixar animation and moving on to post-credit scenes that Marvel's blockbusters popularized — there's just something about spotting things that are hidden in plain sight.

However, there's something even more satisfying than noticing purposefully scattered easter eggs: finding something in films a regular viewer would not be able to make out.

Justin Gerber, a movie buff that has watched over 3,524 films, became fascinated with collecting 'poorly photoshopped/staged family photos' in films. Realizing that it's not that uncommon to find these funny bad photoshops, Justin shared his finds on the internet and soon, hundreds of people joined in the fun and showed off their own unique finds.

To celebrate what might change our film-watching experience forever, for better or worse, Bored Panda has made a compilation of people's best finds — and it's truly something.

After stumbling upon a terribly photoshopped family portrait in a movie, this man started hunting for them in other films

Since he shared his collection, others have followed with their unique finds

It takes one click of a button to find yourself being swallowed by poorly photoshopped film posters. But it takes an entirety of a film — and honest to god dedication — to unearth a single awfully airbrushed family photo. People in nature are curious creatures, so it only makes sense that getting a taste of something as raw and genuine as a badly staged family portrait will only lead to hunger for more. To borrow a catchphrase from Pokémon: 'Gotta catch 'em all!'

To find out how this curious project started, Bored Panda has reached out to Justin Gerber, the author of the titular Twitter thread that inspired hundreds of cinephiles across the world to join Justin's project.

"The pandemic had just begun and, like most of my friends, I was spending the vast majority of my time at home during weeknights and weekends. What better way to fill the time than putting on an insane number of movies that I otherwise would have never watched?" Gerber said, explaining the origins of how it all started.

Although Justin doesn't remember his first truly bad 'family photo' he ever saw on a silver screen, he remembers it was Deon Taylor's home invasion thriller The Intruder (33% on Rotten Tomatoes) that kickstarted the whole thing. "A bit into the movie, there is a close-up of an old family photo that was so badly photoshopped, I paused it, took a picture, and sent it to some friends. We all laughed, and a bit was born."

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You could have guessed that Justin is a self-confessed film buff right to the bone. Not just your garden variety film fan who obsessively watches movies but someone who devours them whole and is always hungry for more (which explains the jaw-dropping total film count on Justin's Letterboxd account).

It's only apt that a cinephile like Justin would work as a co-host on two horror-themed podcasts (one dedicated to Stephen King and the other to The Evil Dead franchise), as part of the Bloody Disgusting channel.

"While I love other pop culture (books, TV, music, sports), movies reign above them all like hog fire," Gerber said. "Within movies, I love the horror genre, and always look forward to discussing those movies in the podcasts I'm part of."

Following the reactions of film characters is part of the movie-watching charm. We human beings react to the on-screen reactions the same way as we do outside the movie screen. Having said that, we're always interested to learn the initial reaction of people who, accidentally or not, manage to spark a viral reaction.

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In Justin's case, people's responses exceeded his expectations. "I expected a little bit of a reaction, because a lot of my followers and I share similar interests," he told us. "However, I was not expecting it to blow up so fast, and was happy to see other people’s posts within the thread receive a lot of notices, as well." Currently, the viral Twitter thread has been shared more than 2,000 times and liked by almost 27,000 people.

Continuing the conversation about poorly photoshopped family photos in films, Justin opens up about his favorites. "It has to be the one from Saw II. Donnie Wahlberg’s detective character and his son are outside Madison Square Garden. Lighting doesn’t sync up, people are together in the same shot who weren’t really together at the time, and [of course there's] a phony backdrop," Gerber pointed out. "It has everything I want in a bad photoshop."

Justin also explains that all of his findings were done naturally — no rewatching or seeking it out using the help of the net. "All of my pics were taken in the moment of discovery or re-discovery. I didn’t seek anything out, which made it a lot more fun and a lot more random," he said. "That’s how you see pics from something like Family of Cops, a latter-day Charles Bronson made-for-Canadian-TV movie."

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#6

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Dorothy Parker
Community Member
2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Candice looked beautiful and normal. The rest...not so much and those arms are terrifying.

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#7

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Kindlovinghumble
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lol love how he's just standing behind a wall while she's full on "wind in her hair", crop top, and this is what they framed. All 3 are doing their own thing.

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#8

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Dorothy Parker
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

David Groh on the right? Barry VanDyke on the left? How To Make A Killing Without Really Trying.

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#10

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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#11

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Sawdust
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For a TV show in 1985 they would've had to do this with physical paper cut-outs of photos.

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#17

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Beans
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Pretty sure they shot that for the movie. It's American Pie, it was part of the joke

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#18

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Daniel Atkins
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The second picture looks like she is Kneecapping the other player.

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#29

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Miss.Information🤔
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Theres almost a cutline around Them, and then planted on a sky background! 🤭 Very bad work! 😆😆😆😆😆

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#30

Poorly Photoshoped Family Photos In Movies

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Cindy Mauch
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This was probably intentional, I think the plotline was he's not her husband but she had an accident and couldn't remember.

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Note: this post originally had 71 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.