Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has long recognized the artfulness,
power, and fun of classic horror and sci-fi movie posters, amassing an
impressive collection being exhibited in a show called It’s Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Movie Posters from the Kirk
Hammett Collection at the Peabody Essex Museum in (appropriately enough)
Salem, Massachusetts, and in a tie-in book of the same name.
The book combines oddities such as the aforementioned Caligari poster, Roland Coudon’s funeral
procession tableaux for Frankenstein,
and a Karoly Grosz Mummy poster that
spotlights the film’s human cast members with a lot of more common promos for
pictures such as Dracula’s Daughter, Barbarella, Mystery of the Wax Museum, and Island
of Lost Souls. Hammett favors pre-sixties posters, though there is a
scattering of later day ones for movies such as Alien, Rosemary’s Baby, Blacula, and of course, It’s Alive. It’s an impressive
collection.
It’s Alive! also
features a few interesting essays on the history and craft of horror promo
posters, the fear reaction as explained through neuroscience and psychology, and
Hammett’s own relationship with horror films and their adverts. Hammett is only
quoted in that latter essay, so he generally allows his artworks to assume the
starring role in this book. However, a shot of him grinning like a kid
surrounded by his collection of other creepy toys, records, magazines, comics,
models, and props really makes me wish this book had expanded its scope more
beyond often familiar poster artwork to encompass the complete Kirk Hammett
Horror Collection.
