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Continuing the saga of guitars with clear as day references to various horror and monster movies I present to you part 2. This gallery is a good bit more focused on the specific movies referenced. The primary focus here is older stuff. With the exception of Vampira everything you’ll see below is of the Universal monster movie category.
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Fun fact. The earliest horror movies I can remember seeing are The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. It’s kind of funny for me to reflect on watching them as a kid compared to watching them now, which is something I’ve kinda forced myself to do while working on these galleries.
When I was a kid I just wanted to see monsters on a rampage, but as I’ve grown I’ve come to appreciate a deeper philosophy in them. I think it was Ricou Browning that had commented that what made the Universal monster movies so strong was that they were all essentially stories of beauty and beast. To that I agree to an extent. I do think there’s something wondrous and magical about the way characters like the creature marvels curiously at the leggy Kay Lawrence, for example.
On the other hand, though. I want to say that they weren’t all great because of that premise. I think by the fifth Mummy movie we all got the idea what was going on. As I’d commented in part 1, a lot of those movies kind of had a wash, rinse, repeat feel to them. As much as I like them a lot of them can be chalked up to “monster kidnaps woman and the guys go to save her.”
Of course they weren’t all completely like that. Not to me, anyway. It’s been an eternity since I’ve seen any of the Dracula or Wolfman movies, so I can’t personally comment on those, but as far as Frankenstein goes I think that’s more of a story of father and son. With each viewing I find it a bit sadder than the last. The monster was only ever that in everyone else’s eyes. Despite the fact that he had the “bad” brain he still showed plenty of signs of child-like innocence.
Ultimately his demise came because of the misunderstanding of bickering adults around him. Of course with as many sequels as there were obviously he didn’t actually die, but no one really treated him any better in the later movies. By then I don’t think many people really cared about his origins.
As far as Vampira is concerned she was a bit before my time. My only experience with the human version of a gothic Barbie doll that was during my viewing of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Try as I may I could not find a guitar for that little gem.
As for the guitars, the green Frankenstein, the Dracula ESPs, and Mummy guitars are all guitars belonging to Kirk Hammett. There are several replicas out there of these guitars, but there are only two official Mummy guitars, both belonging to Hammett, one which has hieroglyphs as inlays and the other with the eye of Horus.
- Check out the entire Halloween Guitar Series here, including last year’s picks.
