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 at the ROM, which started on July 13th, 2019.

Hammett tells CBC “It’s the culmination of about 30 years of collecting.” 

"It's amazing how horror movies reflect the fears and anxieties that we're kind of going through right now," Hammett said.

It's Alive: Classic Sci-Fi and Horror Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection runs until January 5th, 2020 at the ROM.

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.

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