Name: Mr. Frights
The State/Country You Live in: Ohio
Favorite Horror Film and Why: It might seem odd because it’s a sequel or maybe you’d consider it the middle of a franchise, but Halloween 4 is usually at the top of my list. It’s the first true horror flick I watched when I was just a kid. I’d seen other things like horror cartoons and even the Sweeney Todd play with Angela Lansbury from 1982 (which is incredible), but Halloween, Michael Myers, it’s just always been my favorite. Oddly enough, my Halloween/Michael Myers stash is one of them smallest parts of my collection.
What You Collect: I collect movie-based horror toys and memorabilia. Mostly action figures, but some nice pieces of art, books, posters, props or prop replicas, and other odds and ends like my costume masks or horror movie trading cards from the ’80s. If it’s horror and from something I’m a fan of, then it’s likely I’d collect it.
Your Favorite Piece(s) in Your Collection or What Piece(s) You’re Most Proud of: I know it’s cliché, but that’s a hard question to answer. Probably about as difficult as what my favorite horror movie is. But like my favorite horror movie I guess it comes down to my first one: my 18″ Ash from Army of Darkness by Spawn Toys (McFarlane Toys).
What Inspired You to Start Collecting?: Horror movies. It’s that simple. My love of horror movies pushed me into buying horror movie collectibles. When I found that companies were putting out hyper realistic action figures of characters from movie, which was the end of the story.
The First Piece You Acquired and When (Where, if You Remember): The first piece I acquired was the 18″ Ash from Spawn Toys. I was in a mall and walking past a KB Toys store. I saw him in the window, and while I really couldn’t afford him, I was compelled to buy the 18″ tall masterpiece.
Your Favorite Story About a Piece You Have: Some pieces have a longer journey than just from production line to warehouse to store shelf and then to your home, and sometimes its years as well as distance. Around 2005 I was handed a box with a significant pile of movie marquee mylars. They were all from 1987 and 1988. For those who don’t know what they are, a movie marquee mylar is a sign for movies that theaters put up on light boxes. In the ’80s they were simple black and clear film mylar material. Now days they are full color, but much smaller. The ones I have are about 3ft long by about 2ft tall. The guy who gave them to me had worked at the movie theater in the 80’s which is how he had gotten them. I can’t imagine too many exist now days, which means they would be pretty rare.
A little after I’d been given these mylars I’d started my website for Mr. Frights (www.mrfrights.com) and reached out to a bunch of horror celebrities for short interviews. I reached out to Mick Garris (Masters of Horror, The Fly II, Bag of Bones) and he generously did an interview for me. I also asked if he’d be willing to sign my Critters 2 movie mylars, and he said yes. So I mailed them across the country and they came back to Ohio with his signature on them. As I had two of them, I ended up giving one away as a prize to followers of Mr. Frights on Facebook once my page reached 666 followers. The only other one that exists (to my knowledge) is in a frame in my collection room.
You can follow Mr. Frights and his growing collection on Twitter and Instagram at: @MrFrights
