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...