Carter Dow Kirk Hammett with items from his collection of horror-themed memorabilia.Kirk Hammett, the lead guitarist for the band Metallica, was 6 years old when an older brother got a model of Frankenstein and painted it, to Mr. Hammett's dismay, in a rainbow of psychedelic colors.
“It was the late '60s in San Francisco,â€Â Mr. Hammett said. “But that's not how Frankenstein looked. I begged my mom to buy me a model. I painted it the way I wanted.â€
That artistic choice was the start of Mr. Hammett's lifelong obsession with horror memorabilia. Decades after his first acquisition, Mr. Hammett, 50, has amassed a vast collection that includes horror movie pos ters, toys, dolls, games, costumes, masks, original artwork and other mementos. Last month, Abrams released “Too Much Horror Business,†a 228-page coffee-table book that highlights hundreds of those pieces. Selected movie posters from the book are featured in this slide show.
Mr. Hammett recently spoke with ArtsBeat by phone about provocative design, evil sounds and how horror fans and metal lovers are kindred spirits. Following are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Your collection spans several decades. How long have you been a horror fan, and how long have you been collecting?
I've been into horror movies since I was 5. I've been collecting since I was 6. When I started making a little money and had some disposable income, I dove into it. I would say it's been about 28 years of collecting. I have thousands of items. I've never counted everything but I do have i t in a database. A lot of the difficulty in putting the book together was trying to decide what not to put in.
There's a lot of horror memorabilia out there. How did you decide what's worth acquiring?
It was the stuff I liked the most. It didn't really have anything to do with things like monetary worth or how rare stuff was. It had everything to do with how cool the stuff was. It didn't matter if it was older or newer. Usually the coolest stuff is the stuff that is the most rare or that you can't see anymore because the aesthetic isn't there anymore.
You had a big hand in the book, including writing all the captions. What else did you do?
I did all the layout as well, from endpaper to endpaper. I had a very distinct vision. It was important for me that this be shown a certain way. I worked with a graphic designer and art director, and a lot of times there would be movie posters put next to each other that would not work. I made sure every piece was where it should be.
Collection of Kirk Hammett A big section of the book is devoted to the movie posters in your collection. What do you find appealing about the horror poster?
The movie posters are the items that I love the most. I think they are super beautiful. I love what they represent. A lot of the stuff from the '20s had a very expressionistic look to it. I'm really into German Expressionism. I love “Nosferatu†and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari†and “Faust.â€
A lot of the posters from the '30s are also beautiful. At the time horror movies were a relatively new genre, and when the big studios designed posters for them, there was no formula. They used the same approach for a horror movie poster as they would a western or romance. They used lush colors. It was very vibrant. There's a romantic quality to the approach to these posters that you don't get nowadays. The technique they used is a lost art.
Do you remember the first poster you got?
“The Day of the Triffids.†It's a film about giant man-eating plants from space that come in on meteorites. What happens is there's this explosion and it blinds everyone on the face of the earth. Then these man-eating plants stalk humans. I was sequestered inside the house and saw it on TV. I saw it when I was 5. I don't know if I'd show my 5-year-old this movie.
Is your collection on display in your home or do you kee p it in storage?
I really am not the kind of person to store it. I have to display it and have it seen. I also have a shortage of wall space, so what I do is rotate stuff. I'll put something up on the wall and after three months I'll take it down and put something else in its place.
What's the connection between metal and horror movies? There's a lot of crossover between the two, but I wonder where that comes from.
They use the same ingredients. A good horror movie has its peaks and valleys. It's dark and light, just like a good metal song. Visually, horror movies have a dark, evil aspect, just as heavy metal sonically has its darker side, its evil-sounding side. Also they draw from the same subject matter. The best example is the movie “Black Sabbath†and the band Black Sabbath.
Musically there's a movement called the flatted fifth that's really evil-soundin g. It was outlawed by the Catholic Church during the middle ages. That movement is what gives you a real evil sound that conjures up dark, fantastic images. It's like an audio horror movie. It personifies what a horror movie is about.
It's probably hard to choose, but do you have an item in your collection that you consider a favorite?
The movie “Black Cat,†from 1934, is one of my favorite movies. Three or four years ago I was thumbing through an auction catalog and I saw the outfit that Boris Karloff wore in that movie. I couldn't believe it still existed and that someone found it.
I acquired the piece at auction and had a Boris Karloff mannequin made. I put the suit on him. But the second I got the outfit at my house I put it on. I was amazed at how well it fit. I walked around my house for four or five hours pretending I was Boris Karloff.
