1988 Topps Fright Flicks Cards

I first mentioned these back in the spring when I filed a report on the HorrorHound Convention. These cards were produced by Topps in 1988 and ran the gamut of horror films of the time, from the first three Nightmare on Elm Street movies to other movies like Fright Night, Predator, Day of the Dead, and yes even Ghostbusters. For the longest time, this was the only place you could find cards dedicated to the original Ghostbusters movie, that is until the Ghostbusters cards came out earlier this year from Cryptozoic. Anyway, I grabbed this pack at the aforementioned convention for five dollars, which is about the best price you can find on these. There are nine cards per pack and one sticker, let's see what I've got.

The first card is from the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I haven't seen that movie in quite a long time and I think it's time I need to revisit it. I don't really consider Ghostbusters a "horror film", it's more of a comedy but I can see why it was include as fans of the movie would buy the cards. This Slimer card is really cool though. Another movie I don't consider a horror film is Predator. I classify it as more sci-fi and I've only seen it a handful of times. It's a pretty good movie but the only thing I remember from it is Jesse Ventura stating "I ain't got time to bleed".

Left to right, these cards are from Vengeance: The Demon, Nightmare on Elm Street II, and Poltergeist. I've never seen, let alone heard of Vengeance but that scene they chose looks pretty creepy. I haven't seen Nightmare 2 but it's on my list to check out. I need to do that soon as Halloween is approaching fast. There was a remake of Poltergeist last year that did horrible business and I've never seen the original either, but that clown just looks creepy.

Closing out the pack are cards from three movies I've never seen, Fright Night, Poltergeist as I mentioned above, and Day of the Dead. Since I have no knowledge of these films, I'll speak to the card design a bit. It's very clean and simple, just a still from the film with a somewhat cheesy caption on it. 

The backs are equally as clean. There's a brief story on the back and I really like the design on the bottom with the film title in the marquee. 

There's also a sticker included in the pack, here's the one I pulled. I'm writing this during my break at work so I pulled this image from Trading Card Database. It's not my favorite sticker of the set but if you put all of them together, you form a nice collage of sorts.

Overall, this was a really fun pack to break into and if I can find more packs for a reasonable price, I'll definitely get more as I'm planning on building the set and collecting the four different wrappers. It's nearly Halloween and I've got a few more Halloween related posts before putting Project Halloween in the books for the year. 

Road Report: HorrorHound Convention 2016!

Every year, I get invited by my friend Tim to go to the HorrorHound convention and every year something comes up, be it an unexpected expenditure or otherwise, and I can't make it. However, this year I made sure my calendar was clear and set aside some extra cash to head down and take in the convention. I would have taken more pictures but the convention center was absolutely packed and you had to keep moving otherwise you'd get run over.

The main draw of the convention were autograph guests and horror icons such as Doug Bradley (Pinhead from "Hellraiser), Elvira, Nick Castle (Michael Myers in the original "Halloween"), Charles Cyphers, Kane Hodder, Ari Lehman, and WWF legends Demolition (Ax & Smash) and Chyna. While I didn't feel like dropping $50 per person on autographs, I wandered around the vendors room and checked out the Horror Host Hall of Fame Ceremony.

Elvira (R) with Count Gore de Vol

The Hall of Fame ceremony kicked off with an lifetime achievement award presented to Elvira. While she didn't stay for long (as the event was running late to begin with and she had to get to her autograph signing), I was able to get a somewhat decent picture of her accepting the award. The other reason I wanted to attend the ceremony is because my friend's girlfriend's step-dad (known on TV in the Dayton area as A. Ghastlee Ghoul) was being inducted as well. It was pretty cool to see clips of all the inductees such as The Adviser, Count Cool Rider, Dr. Morbius, and Ghost Host among others.

After the Hall of Fame induction was over, my friends and I wandered around the vendors area. There was a ton of stuff there that I was really could have bought, but my budget wouldn't allow it. So instead, I found some good stuff that wasn't too terribly expensive.

Funko dolls are an addiction and these were the best of the Funkos I could find from the one vendor that didn't have a horrible markup on them. I'm a big fan of anything Ghostbusters and this Slimer was perfect to grab there, too bad I couldn't find the other characters. Another thing I enjoy are the original Universal Monsters (The Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.). Again, this was the best of the batch that I felt like getting.

Michael West is a local author that was peddling his wares at the show. My friend, his girlfriend, and I each bought a book for $10. This particular one called "Spook House" jumped out to me simply because the cover looked really cool. The old saying is to never judge a book by its cover so hopefully it's good but if it's not then at least I didn't pay that much for it.

Finally, the best thing I bought at the convention and then main thing I was looking for in the vendors room ... FRIGHT FLICKS!!!! If you've never heard or seen these cards, then you're missing out. It's only a 72 card set but features stills from the first three Nightmare on Elm Street films along with Alien, Poltergeist, Predator, Fright Night, and Ghostbusters. It's actually the only trading card series that features cards for the original Ghostbusters film from 1984. Nine cards per pack with one sticker and one stick of bubble gum (which I did not try).

The nine cards that were in the pack and I managed to get one of the Ghostbuster cards featuring Slimer raiding a food cart. The middle card of Freddy Krueger is from Nightmare on Elm Street II.

The back of the cards. There's a little story on the back and the marquee on the bottom tells what movie the still is from. I think this is a series that I'll definitely have to work on collecting, especially if I can find more packs. This pack cost me $5 but it's worth it because boxes of these go for about $70 or more on eBay.

This is definitely a convention I'll head back to next year as it was a lot of fun and for a person like me who digs horror movies, it was a great experience!