The scary shirt designer next door

Greece native Ben Scrivens was just 4 when he first saw the horror movie, “Halloween,” yet he remembers it vividly.

“I don't remember being scared of it, but the imagery stuck with me,” he said. “I wanted more.”

He became obsessed with horror. The more gore, the better.

As a teen, he watched flicks with friend and Greece Arcadia High School graduate Tim Kilmer.

“‘Why do you like this?’ my parents would ask,” Scrivens said. “My parents would worry about me.”

Now, they’re proud of their entrepreneur son. Scrivens and Kilmer work together at Scriven’s Internet-based horror T-shirt business, Fright-Rags.com. Scrivens, 31, who still lives in Greece, designs, packages and sells shirts dedicated to horror movies. One of their creations recently appeared on the hit NBC comedy “30 Rock” and Scrivens has rubbed elbows with some big-name celebs at horror conventions.

Scrivens launched the venture in late 2003. He asked Kilmer to join him in August 2008.

“We’ve gotten along for 20 years,” Kilmer said. “Its a good working relationship.”

Kilmer works in shipping and receiving while Scrivens dedicates himself to getting orders and customer relations. Both have made the business their full-time job.

Scrivens said that he got the idea for the business while chatting on online horror forums with other movie fans. He started to develop T-shirt designs, put a few of them on the forum and got a good response.

“Based on that, I spent $600 on my credit card,” he said. It was this $600 that helped him get started Labor Day 2003.

He stayed at his daytime job as a marketing coordinator for a few years until he was able to quit about a year ago and focus entirely on his business.

Since then, business for the 31-year-old Scrivens has exploded: he got a deal with a popular clothing chain Hot Topic and one of his shirts got national air time: On the Jan. 22 episode of “30 Rock,”  actor Judah Friedlander wore a shirt that’s a spoof on the slogan “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do?) with a hockey mask in place of the “J,” to represent the killer from horror film “Friday the 13th.”

Scrivens met Friedlander at a horror convention in a hotel where Friedlander was featured at a comedy club. Scrivens’ brother met Friedlander and told him about Scrivens’ shirts.

“He said he would love to wear these on ‘30 Rock,’” Scrivens said.

Scrivens said that he wasn’t watching the show when his shirt was on.

“My brother called up at 9:40 p.m. and said ‘Dude, your shirt’s on TV! It’s getting a lot of screen time,’” Scrivens said.

Scrivens said that when he checked his e-mail after the show was done, he had sold 25 to 30 of that style shirts in minutes.

Scrivens doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to seeing people wearing his creations.

“It still trips me out,” he said. “When I see a room of people wearing them, its weird.”

Scrivens gets to see people wearing his work at the annual New Jersey horror convention, Monster Mania. There, he’ll sell up to 500 shirts over a weekend and, he gets to see horror film actors like Robert Englund, who played Freddy Kruger in the 1980s series “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Scrivens also met actors Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, who starred in the 1987 hit, “Lost Boys.”

Scrivens’ parents are among his biggest fans, even wearing his shirts. His mom, he jokes, is now an “employee,” folding every one of his shirts.

Scrivens converted his garage on Courtly Circle into a storage space for the 3,000 to 4,000 shirts he has on hand.

His basement is his work space. Right above his computer, Scrivens has about 10 masks from horror films, including four Freddy Kruger masks.

Scrivens’ 2-year-old daughter is invited down to his basement from time to time.

“I never want her to be scared of that,” he said. Scrivens said that he won’t let her watch horror movies for awhile though, and probably won’t let her watch “Halloween” at age 4 like he did.