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In 1988, the Topps Company – creators of trading cards dedicated to everything from Major League Baseball to Garbage Pail Kids – released one of the most ambitious lines ever to hit the non-sport market: Fright Flicks. Each pack included nine cards that featured images from horror movies like Alien, Aliens, A Nightmare on Elm Street 1-3, An American Werewolf in London, Fright Night, Pumpkinhead, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist and Poltergeist II, The Fly, Predator, and Day of the Dead. Also featured in each pack was one sticker and a piece of the company’s infamous bubble gum.
To be clear, Topps had a storied history of creating cards that catered to monster kids, having already released Alien and Jaws 2 lines (and that’s not even scratching the surface, garishly illustrated cards were a hallmark of their Wacky Packages, and the company had utilized their artistic MVPs like Norm Saunders and John Pound for their legendary Ugly Stickers in 1965). In 1973, their Creature Feature line showcased black and white images from classic horror films paired with comedic captions to enhance the modern fun. A second line followed in 1980, but it would be nearly a decade until the concept reached its full potential with Fright Flicks.
What made this line so unforgettable was how it utilized a bunch of R-rated films, and the images used were often packed with blood and guts – the exact sort of thing that appealed to kids and grossed out their parents. For less than a dollar, tweens could get their hands on scenes from movies that had been forbidden to see. The offbeat humor of the cards helped to undercut the often disturbing imagery that they were showcasing, diffusing potential nightmares in the process. A cult success during its launch, the line never got a follow up, something that can be attributed to everything from the moral panic of the era to the fact that high schoolers who would have really loved these things had aged out of buying trading cards. At least temporarily.
