Ever since he was five or six years old, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has had an obsession with horror movies, reports Joe Smith-Engelhardt of Exclaim!. His collection of movie posters, props and collectables started small but grew into one of the world's most prominent archives of the movie genre's history as he gained fame with his band — and now, he's bringing his massive collection to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, with an exhibit called It's Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection.

Public interest in Hammett's collection grew during Metallica's Orion Music + More Festival, at which he hosted a small exhibit and led panel discussions with legends of the genre. The vast scope of his collection was put on full display for the first time last year at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and it's now on its way to the ROM, starting on July 13, 2019.

"Toronto is horror city central," says Hammett over the phone in an Exclaim! interview. "It's the great Northeastern horror capital, and I mean that. There's a big market for horror in Toronto, and I think Toronto realizes that too. [The ROM] approached us and said they were interested in getting the collection, so it made perfect sense."

Hammett's collection spans the entire history of horror movies, from early 20th Century films like Frankenstein and Nosferatu to '70s and '80s slasher films and everything in between. Determining which pieces made it into the exhibit was no small process, but Hammett believes he's made the best selections to represent the full history of the horror genre.

"The pieces that are picked are the pieces that have the most relevance," admits Hammett. "Also I have a tendency to lean toward pieces that are more illustrative and have a certain amount of visual appeal. A movie like Nosferatu is really important because it's the very first vampire movie and there's hardly any material that has survived from the '20s."

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