Metallica’s Kirk Hammett talks about his lifelong obsession with the horror genre and how it’s affected even the music he makes in a video posted by Sotheby’s to promote its online auction of a poster for the iconic 1932 movie The Mummy.
The seven-minute clip is titled Why Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Can’t Stop Collecting Horror and includes this revealing quote about how his passion for the macabre comes out in his music: “I have a tendency to play stuff that’s dark and haunting and in a minor key. I definitely attribute that to my earlier influence of the horror genre.”
The Mummy poster features the tagline “It’s Comes to Life!” over paintings of the film’s star, Boris Karloff, and his love interest, Zita Johann. Bidding starts at $950,000 for the item, which is expected to fetch between $1-million and $1.5-million. The auction ends at 11am CT on Halloween.
In the video, Hammett says he owns one of the three original theatrical posters of The Mummy known to exist and talks about his first experience seeing the film when he was about six or seven. He recalls that “Boris Karloff…as the mummy, Imhotep, was mesmerizing to me. I’ll never forget how deep and hollow his eyes looked.”
