Halloween Retro Lovin': Part 6!

Hillbilly Jason from Cult Classics Hall of Fame Series!

You know, as much as I love zombie Jason, I almost love redneck Jason equally. This version here has to be the most unique Jason out of all 12 films. No hockey mask or shredded clothing anywhere, just a plaid shirt, some overalls, and a fucking pillowcase with a hole in it. And he only appeared like this once; in Friday the 13th Part 2. Since Pamela Voorhees had her head lopped off at the end of the first one, it was only natural to reveal that Jason never drowned, but instead he crawled out of the lake, built a shed in the woods, and lived there, on his own, for probably close to ten years (I don't actually recall the time difference between when he died and when his mom did). So the writers probably didn't think this through all that much, but it's still miles better than Jason getting doused in toxic waste while turning him into a kid again.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't get the boxed set this figure originally came in. In that set, I would have not only gotten inbred Jason, but also his mom and a nice shrine with Mrs. Voorhees' head and some candles. Instead, NECA took figures from their boxed sets, stripped them of some items, and released them in a "Hall of Fame" series. Goddamnit, I really want that Pamela Voorhees figure. She'd look great standing by my Norman Bates toy.

So yee-haw Jason here is a pretty odd looking fellow. Most people would have no clue whatsoever who he even was if they saw him on my shelf. And since he has both pillowcase head and "Hills Have Eyes" head, I have the nice option of doubly confusing people no matter how I display him. He's a nice looking figure, much skinnier than undead Jason ever was (I guess living off squirrel and raccoon is better than worms and dirt). I'd love to see the story of what the fuck happened to Jason between his "drowning" and the start of his never ending murder spree. Where did he get those overalls? Who told him a plaid shirt was a good fashion idea? I guess we'll never know. Oh well, what we do know is Jason saw his mom get her head removed and decided to take the cranium back to his pad and carry on with her work while looking as unappealing as humanly possible.

So the paint on this yokel is pretty impressive. The plaid shirt looks fantastic with clear, sharp lines. The overalls have a nice wash over them that really help to make them look like used, worn, fabric. There's even some mud on his lower legs. As for heads, well, I prefer to display him with pillowcase face. His unmasked head kinda looks like a seriously fucked up Chucky. Also, the pillowcase covers up the piss poor stubble paint job on his neck. Seriously, the neck hair looks more like the marks on the Alien Nation aliens than actual stubble. The unmasked head itself though does look great, with very nasty teeth, face stubble, and a really lumpy head with missing hair. His eyes are different between both heads though; unmasked has weird light blue and white pupils while bag head has a regular blue eye. I like the unmasked eyes slightly better as they make him look like his vision is all kinds of fucked up. The pillowcase itself is very nicely detailed with a great wash over it.

As for blood, this guy is pretty clean. His right hand is a little bloody, but not his left. And that's it, you won't find another drop of the red stuff anywhere on this guy.

His articulation is pretty much arms and neck only. He does have cut ankles so his shoes can move, but the sculpt really hinders them.. He has has the cut elbows and wrists like the other Jasons, but his arms and neck are ball joints. This helps him to hold some of his weapons with both hands, or he could churn butter if he had a, um,  butter churner (yeah, I'm no farmer). As for the rest of his body, it's just one hard chunk of plastic.

Even though this isn't the boxed set, he still has some nice accessories. He has a dirty base to stand on but once again this guy stands fine on his own. And once again he has 3 weapons. This time he gets a machete (huge surprise), a harpoon (shocking), and a pick axe. The pick axe is new, and seems more appropriate being welded by this redneck Jason than the other versions. His weapons are all pretty clean too. No blood and not much dirt at all. He's also got both bagged head and nekked head, and they pop on and off pretty easily.

Oh but look at this! He's got dear old momma's head too. The head looks just like it did at the end on the film, so that means it looks nothing like actress Betsy Palmer but more like a tree stump with hair. Too bad I don't have a shrine to place her on...

So I really dig this figure and I'm thrilled NECA went with making a Jason figure that such a small amount of people would ever recognize. But we're not done with Jason yet. Nor have we finished with Freddy. One film brought these two horror icons together, and one boxed set did as well...

Halloween Retro Lovin': Part 5!

Jason Voorhees from Cult Classics Series 1!

FUCK. YES. This sunuvabitch here is how a goddamned Jason figure should be. From zombiefied head down to his bony knees, this Jason is 100% pure awesome. He's a fucking beast too; this bastard towers over other horror figures. Honestly, this is the best looking Jason figure ever made. He's based on his look in Friday the 13th: Part 7 (The one where he fights a chick with psychic powers) and it's easily my favorite look from all the films. This is Jason after sitting at the bottom of Crystal lake for years and years, and boy, does it show.

Jason was chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake thanks to his arch, Tommy Jarvis (well, the third actor playing him anyways). You see, Tommy killed Jason in Part 4, was a mental case in the Jason-less Part 5, and was a bloody fucktard in Part 6. You see, Part 6 starts off with 'ol Jason dead and buried. Tommy and his dumbshit sidekick decide that maybe he's not really all that dead, so the assbeams dig him up. Guess what they find? HE'S FUCKING DEAD! But whoops! Tommy shoves a metal rod through Jason's lifeless corpse and BLAMMO, lighting strikes it and Jason is fucking back. Classic.

But how does he ever get out of the lake, you ask? Well, in Part 7, psychic girl is mad at daddy while he's standing on the dock of the lake and she uses her mutant powers to bring the dock down, killing daddy and letting the worst hockey player ever, free. Part 7 is also the first time Kane Hodder ever played Jason. He would play Jason more than any other actor, portraying the famous slasher in 4 films.

Jason looks like a wreck here; he's got almost as much bone showing as he does skin. And this time the mask is supposed to come off. I love how there's a bottom chunk of the mask missing, exposing his fucked up mouth. The mask also has a gash at the top where it took a machete to it back in Part 4. As for the shirt, it's even less there than his last figure. Ribs stick out of the front of it, while his back has not only exposed ribs, but a spine and shoulder blades as well. Both of his knees are nothing but bone too (insert Jason being on his knees too much joke here). He's even got gloves on, but they're fairly decayed as well. And once you remove his mask, you get a corpse; empty eye socket, old scars from past films, no nose, and half his mouth missing. It's just awesome.

All the paint looks great on him, especially the grayish color of the hockey mask. There's no question that his flesh hasn't been living tissue for ages and his bones are clearly visible through his skin and clothes. If there's one issue I have with him, it's that he's fairly bloodless. One odd paint mark on his face and, for some weird reason, two bloody butt cheeks is all we get.

If there's one area where the McFarlane figure is actually better in, it's the articulation. Jason has no leg movement at all, so his total points of articulation is 8. Everything else the last figure had, this one has too, and you can get some great arm positions for him to hold his various weapons. No ball joints here, unfortunately. That may have been great for his neck and arms, but the sculpt is so good here ball joints might not have disrupted the sculpt.

Jason seems to work good with 3 weapons, so here we get another machete , axe, and harpoon. The machete isn't metallic like the other figure, but it still looks good. The axe isn't too shabby, but the harpoon looks fantastic and has real string on it. None of the weapons have any blood on them, but they stiff look worn and grimy. He also comes with a nice forest base even though he stands fine on his own. I've included his chain necklace as an accessory too. The chain is much smaller than it appeared in the movie, and it's plastic, not metal, but it's a nice inclusion. Since his mask is removable you could technically include that as an accessory too.

I really cannot emphasize enough how great of a figure this is. I hope the new franchise goes "zombie" after a few more films. For some reason, having a mentally loafed zombie redneck lunatic who only kills moronic teens just puts a huge smile on my face. Speaking of redneck lunatic...

Halloween Retro Lovin': Part 4!

Jason Voorhees from Movie Maniacs Series 1!

Enough Freddy nonsense. It's time to take a look at my favorite retarded slasher, Jason. With 12 movies under his belt (even though he was really only in 11 of them), Jason is the killer that keeps on slaying. Fortunately for us, Jason has also had quite a few different looks, which means his action figures are much more varied than Fred's. So let's start from the very beginning, with what I believe is the first Jason figure ever made.

Movie Maniacs first series gave us Freddy, so it was only natural  to give us a Jason too. The figure came out looking pretty fantastic. This is obviously zombie Jason, and I'm guessing his look is mostly inspired from Jason goes to Hell. His flesh is pale and decayed. His clothes are shredded to shit (his shirt is basically just strands of fabric). His head is all lumpy while his mask looks like someone tried to shove it through a wood chipper. The mask does look like it has a fairly large nose though, which seems to look even larger in the photos. It's really not all that distracting in person. What I love about this Jason is it looks like he just crawled straight out of Crystal Lake, and that's pretty spiffy.

Jason's paint is messy, in a good way. His exposed flesh looks like it's been sitting at the bottom of a lake for years. The blood splatter on him is done in a way that makes it look like he just gutted some poor stoner. The mask is also nicely done; the edges have a nice gray shading while the front is a dirty white. The red triangle is sharp too. A dirty blue shirt and gray pants finish him off. One look and you'll know this is Pamela's little boy.

His articulation is a little better than Freddy's; 10 big points! He has has two cut leg joints but there really isn't many different positions you can get him in without making him topple over. He also has a cut waist, cut shoulders, cut wrists, and cut bicep joints which really help to get his arms in some decent positions. He's got a cut neck too. Nothing too fancy with him but those bicep cuts sure do help.

JV has a few nice accessories; a machete, an axe, and a harpoon. All classic Jason weapons. The machete is easily the standout here. It has a shiny metallic finish to it with a blood splatter and one hell of a bloody tip. The vac-metal paint job make this one of the nicest items of all my Jason figures. The axe has a good amount of blood too, but it looks like Jason hasn't used the harpoon much as there's very little blood splatter on it. He also came with the movie poster stand that all Movie Maniacs figures came with. I'm pretty positive the poster is the Jason goes to Hell poster too, which would make my earlier thought on him pretty accurate.

One thing of interest is his face mask is not removable. Years ago someone did pry it off and they found a nicely fucked up face sculpted there. So, I went ahead and pried it off too. His face looks like half of it was made from silly putty. What I find funny is his teeth look nicer here than they look on his Friday the 13th: Part 2 figure. I'm not sure how movie accurate his face really is as I don't believe his face ever looked the same twice. The mask doesn't really stay on that great anymore, but I don't regret removing it to see his ugly mug.

 

I really wish one company would have come out with a full set of Jason figures with all his different looks. Fuck, we've still yet to receive a kid Jason or a fake Jason (Friday the 13th: Part 5-an epic pile of shit). But McFarlane did give us cyber Jason (which I still don't have) and NECA gave us some fucking classics too, including a Jason figure that absolutely blows me away with its pure undead awesomness...

Halloween Retro Lovin': Part 3!

New Nightmare Freddy Krueger from Cult Classics Series 2!!!

In 2005, toy company NECA decided to start in on their own line of horror figures called Cult Classics. While the Movie Maniacs line was ending, the Cult Classics line busted in and picked up the slack, offering some truly fantastic figures. The second wave brought us another Freddy figure, but this one wasn't just a new version of regular Freddy. Nope, this was Freddy from the New Nightmare film, the movie that tried to bring Freddy into our real world. No matter what you thought of the film, the new Freddy did look pretty cool, and the figure did a great job of capturing his new look.

NECA had some fantastic sculpters on their team, and Freddy came out looking great. Freddy still wears the classic sweater, but he now also has a sweet ass trench coat. The coat is black on the outside while having the green and red stripes lining the interior. His face had subtle differences from the old Freddy; now his face didn't really look burnt, more like he had chunks of flesh torn away with muscle exposed underneath. His glove was now gone too. Instead, his claws came from a bone overlay that was on his hand. Kinda weird, but the veins that ran on the palm of his hand were real cool looking.

The paint job on Mr Krueger was pretty damn perfect. The red and green stripes look pretty clean on both the sweater and the trench coat, while the pants and exterior of the coat are just a solid black. In fact, I don't believe they are painted at all but the plastic is cast in the black color. Both hands look damn good. The burnt hand has exposed muscle that matches his face and the clawed hand has the red veins and beige bone while the claws are a nice silver. His hat is an olive green color that matches up to the green on his sweater fairly close. Finally, his face looks fantastic too. The exposed muscle and flesh are nicely done and the eyes weren't bad. They are not as green as the last Freddy figure, and they are a little wonky on his snarling head, but they still looked decent enough.

Articulation. Freddy's of old didn't really have too much. New Freddy, on the other hand... still didn't have much. In fact he only had one more joint than the Movie Maniacs 4 Freddy. But the huge difference here was the use of ball joints. Freddy had cut ankles where the boot starts, a cut waist, both elbows are now cut joints, and both wrists are cut. But his neck and elbows are ball joints, which add to his range of motion greatly. His arms can now open up to give molesty hugs, and his head can tilt to the side like a confused dog. Seriously, ball joints are awesome.

As for the accessories, NECA fucking pimped this bitch out. Once again he has a removable hat, but now he has two heads; an open mouth "snarling" head and a slightly more closed mouth head. Honestly, there really isn't a huge difference between his head sculpts, but extra heads are always nice to have and they pop on and off pretty easily. The coolest accessory he has though is his base. The base is straight from the movie, with a broken pillar and snakes on it. There is a peg for his foot, but unlike the last Freddy figure, this one stands fine on his own. Lastly, he has an open script from the movie with actual tiny little writing on it. 

So New Nightmare Freddy is a fairly awesome figure, especially for those that really liked his look from that movie. I'm fairly Freddy'd out right now, so why don't we move on to everybody's favorite drowned retard momma's boy...

 

Halloween Retro Lovin': Part 2!

Freddy Krueger from Movie Maniacs Series 4!!!

In 2001 McFarlane went back to the old Freddy pool to bring us one nice freaking figure. Huge strides were made in his sculpt, and his paint work was stunning. But for all the improvements over the old figure, he still had several shortcomings that would keep him from being a perfect representation of our favorite bastard son of a hundred maniacs.

First off, hot damn, this fellow has one nice sculpt. McFarlane made his hat removable this time around, which was obviously a huge plus. That also meant that his face could no longer hide under a hat so the sculpt had to be spot on. Well, it sure as shit is. From the green eyes to the demonic smile to the bloody holes in his head, even a blind baby could tell that this was Freddy. Even his teeth look nasty. The great sculpt doesn't stop with his head though; his entire body is nicely detailed. The glove has been improved, with sharper claws and added blood. His burnt hand is nicely detailed as well. He even has sculpted mud on his boots. The shirt is smooth this time, without the texture of the older figure, but it really isn't a huge issue as the folds and wrinkles help make up for it.

The paint job helps him stand out too. The bloody holes in his head are kinda shiny to give them the look of fresh wounds. The blood isn't quite as crazy as his last figure, but there is still more than enough here to make it look as though he just tried banging Carrie. His hat has a few blood lines that make it look like he just put it on with his gloved hand. The slight mud on his boots looks great too. But there is a problem. The stripping on his shirt looks great, but his arms have no stripes. They are just red sleeves. It makes him look off, like he's wearing a sweater vest or something. It just doesn't look right at all.

His articulation isn't much of an improvement either. He's got 3 extra points compared to last time: his burnt hand now has a cut at the wrist, and both his boots have a cut at the ankle. The boot articulation is kinda pointless though; no matter what I do, this fucker falls right over. I'm shocked I haven't broken one of his claws yet. The neck articulation is also odd due to the way his head is sculpted. You can only have him look to the left or down at this muddy boots. No looking straight at all. These issues keep him from being a Grand Slam to a Triple (sorry, Dodger game is on right now).

No accessories this time either, except for his hat. Not a huge problem, but added accessories are always nice.

So if it wasn't for the red sleeves, limited head movement, and inability to stand, this would have been close to being a perfect figure. Luckily for toy collectors, a new company would jump into the world of horror figures and bring with them the awesome power of the "ball joint"...

Halloween Retro Lovin': Part 1!

Welcome to part one of a special 7 part series for one of my favorite times of the year, Halloween. I'm going to be heading back a few years to look at the 2 most iconic horror characters since Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster; Freddy Krueger & Jason Voorhees. I'll be looking at 3 Freddy figures followed by 3 Jason figures and capping it off with a look at the amazing Freddy vs Jason boxed set. So lets get this bitch started off with...


Freddy Krueger from Movie Maniacs Series 1!!!

In 1998 the collecting game was changed big time. Horror figures had been made before, and many different companies had done everything from old Universal monster toys to Jason statues, but no one had ever taken horror icons from several different films and put them in one line together. Thank God for McFarlane Toys. They came swinging out of the gates with a line of figures called Movie Maniacs. Horror geeks had found their nirvana. The first set had 5 figures: 2  from the Species films, Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jason from Friday the 13th, and Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Action figures from Nightmare & Friday?!?! FUCK YEAH!

So I was actually a little reluctant to buy the figures due to the lack of articulation at first. It wasn't until McFarlane packaged Freddy and Jason together in a special boxed set that I decided to start collecting the line. I learned to live with the loss of articulation once I had finally had the figures in my hand. They were bloody and detailed and came with some damn good accessories (Leatherface had a bucket with a head in it!) so while I couldn't make Freddy and Jason battle like ninjas, they could at least stand on my shelf looking cool.

Freddy came with 6 points of articulation: he had a cut neck, cut shoulders, a cut bicep on his gloved arm, a cut wrist on his gloved hand, and a cut waist. Due to the articulation on his gloved arm you could get a few cool poses out of him, but with no leg articulation, he was stuck in one basic pose. Luckily, he had a fairly dynamic sculpt, so even with him just standing there, he looked cool.

Speaking of the sculpt, there was no doubt at all that this was Freddy. His pants were more red than any other color due to the blood sprinklers he must have just ran through (his shoes are muddy so you can tell he was playing outside), but his shirt was pure Freddy. The red and green stripes were quite prominent, even with blood and yellow mucus stuff all over him. And the gloved had looked damn good too. Unfortunately, his face sculpt was kinda weak. He had the unmistakable Freddy nose, but his skin was more wicker man than burn victim. Still, with the body and hat, it was definitely Freddy.

Freddy also came with a mini Freddy puppet from what my cruddy memory tells me was Nightmare on Elm Street 3. The puppet was pretty cool looking, and it even had cut shoulders on both arms. He also came with a neat stand that had a mini poster for A Nightmare on Elm Street with the Movie Maniacs logo on it. I've got all the posters packed up in the garage somewhere, so sorry, no pics.

Freddy was a great start to what would become one of the longest running series of horror figures ever. But it wasn't the only Freddy figure that would come from the line. In 2001, McFarlane would try again...

Webstor from MOTUC!

So far, every Masters of the Universe Classics' figure that has been released I owned as a child (if possible; He-Ro and Grayskull were never made in the 80's). Webstor, on the other hand, eluded me. I have no clue why I never had the spider-man when I was a kid. I'm guessing I just never found him in stores. My cousin had him, but we never really got to play with him due to his rope constantly getting knotted up. My aunt must have spent days getting the knots out of that thing. So Webby here didn't really have much of an impact on my childhood.

But now here he is, in all his dark blue skinned glory. And after all these years...his impact is still minimal. Sure, he's a nice addition to the line, but he's more on the level of Tri-Klops than Scareglow or Beastman. Several improvements have been made over his OG figure: they gave him a few extra eyes, like a spider should have, and they added some appendages to his backpack to make him more arachnid and less Skeletor with different armor and a new head. And honestly, that's exactly what he is, a Skeletor repaint. Is that a bad thing? Nah, there's so much re-use in this line that it's pretty much the norm right now.

Well, the backpack is pretty neat. They added a nice thick rope this time so no worry of knots. The grappling hook is there too, but it doesn't have the climbing feature that the old one had. The extra appendages really help make him look better, and for those wack jobs that don't want them, you can always bend them down or just remove the backpack completely. But if you're complaining about the fact that he looks more like a spider, then go choke on a black widow.

Well, that's Webstor. I think he should open a chain of Halloween themed stores on Eternia called WebStore. Eternians don't seem to have many retail stores, and it's about damn time that changed. MOTUC has some great figures coming up soon, so expect my enthusiam to grow faster than the winky on an old man after downing a case of Viagra while watching Showgirls.

And I made it through the whole article without mentioning Emmanuel Lewis once. Who's jokes are juvenile now bitches!!!