AHHH Halloween, a time of ghosts, ghouls and cheesy horror flicks. This year in celebration of the day of the evil spirits rising from the grave I thought I would take a step back and do a retro-review of Neca’s Faces of Fear line which highlighted three iconic horror movie characters.  

When Neca announced this line the imaginations started running wild. Before we even had pictures of the figures ideas of 1:18th scale Michael Myers, Chucky and tons of other horrific icons were being discussed. The toys hit and by all accounts sold very well, I personally have only seen one Freddy and a few Leatherface’s in the stores since the release. But despite the brisk sales Neca has stalled any announcements of future assortments for some strange reason. Still as a result of this line we have some awesome and iconic characters to terrorize your GI Joes, Star Wars, or any other 3 & ¾ inch figures.  

There is a joke floating around about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was based on a true story-the murderer was in Illinois, there was no chainsaw, and there was only one murder, but beyond that totally true. Honestly I have no clue how much of the original movie is true and don’t care to find out.  

I saw the Texas Chainsaw Massacre a long, long time ago, so long in fact I couldn’t tell you what year (other than I was a teenager). To be blunt I felt let down, I expect much, much more gore than I saw and felt the pace was very slow, of course years later I understand things about filmmaking better and realize the pacing builds tension. But after a steady diet of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street it was kind of tough to step backwards and see what others had seen in the film. Much later in life, around my 20’s I saw it again and liked it much more. I have never liked the sequels though, they seemed to attempt to be excessively gory or just plain stupid (Especially the one with Rene Zellweger and Mathew McConaohey). There was also a remake a few years ago, the highlight of which was Jessica Beil in a wet T-Shirt, beyond that the film kind of stunk as did the three sequels to it.  

I don’t think Leatherface reached the same level of “icon” as his wave mates for several reasons. For one, he did not act alone but with his family which, even by the kindest standards, were backwards hicks thus making Leatherface look kind of stupid in comparison as well. While Jason had his mother, his motives were vengeance so that kind of worked, not so with Leatherface. While Leatherface is the main focus, he is not the only bad guy. The solo acts make it easier for an audience I believe.  

Also I think Leatherface was never called by his name in the movie (been a very long time so I might be wrong) and so he somewhat felt like he had no identity of his own. Even Jason has some personality.  

Lastly is his mask, while made from human flesh in the film I always felt the mask looked kind of goofy. In some ways it appears like a clown mask only without the color. I think the intention was to be somewhat sinister but instead it comes across as comedic. Maybe I am jaded but that is the way it comes across to me.  

Still he is one of the horror icons, Joe Bob Briggs has often referred to Leatherface and Texas Chainsaw as the first slasher movie. Some have argued John Carpenter’s Halloween (made 4 years later) was first, sighting that Leatherface’s chainsaw isn’t a “Slashing weapon” (insert eye roll, move on to the figure). Truth is (as far as movies) everyone has to look further back to Norman Bates in Psycho, but that is another story.  

Leatherface has some nice articulation, his wrists have similar motion that the current GI Joe POC Jungle Viper and upcoming Snake Eyes. This helps him hold his chainsaw in a variety of positions. Along with the chainsaw Leatherface has his hammer to hit hapless victims unconscious so he can skin them later.  

Another Aspect of this figure I do like is the blood splatters literally everywhere. These are not present on Jason or Freddy and they shouldn’t be as most times the dark cloths hid such things on those characters, with Leatherface the blood was part of the scare factor.  

Still I can see how he didn’t sell as well as the others, as kids we didn’t gravitate towards this film or if you did it was much later after several years of watching other horror and gore fests. I still say this is one of those characters that just fit and is worthy of picking up. For pure sculpt he is one of the best 1:18th figures to date so on that merit alone he is worth adding to a collection.  

But chainsaws only take you so far, and eventually the stuff of nightmares is necessary for a good scare. Nightmare on Elm Street delivered by one of the better horror directors of all time, Wes Craven. Wes has said something interesting about horror in many interviews over the years, he said that basically the main reason horror gets so little respect is that the films are trying to make the audience feel something that they don’t necessarily want to feel, especially the critics and thus they get blasted for doing so. I thought it was a great explanation as to why so many critics go back and re-rate films that grab the cultural consciousness (Looking at you Ebert) and refuse to stand by their original “Trash” reviews.  

One of my favorite shots of any film of all time is in Nightmare on Elm Street. It is the shot of the little girls jumping rope that pans to the red car pulling up. If you notice there is no cut or edit, yet the film changes speed, one of those things that is just awesome.  

I loved the first Nightmare, but only mildly liked the sequel, I had a lot more affection for the third movie than the second, but the first still reigned as the best. Numbers four, five and six really did nothing for me, they were ok in some parts but overall I felt the franchise had run its course. For the most part in those movies I just watched the beginning to see how Freddy came back and the end to see how he was killed this time. However, I LOVED New Nightmare if only because I liked how Wes Craven took the idea of a fictional character reaching into the real world was so original, to make it a character we are familiar with was just icing on the proverbial cake. But notice that my favorite movies of the franchise (with the exception of Freddy vs. Jason) were not only directed by Wes Craven but also stared Heather Langenkamp. I won’t lie about it, as a teenager I had a huge crush on Heather after I saw the first Nightmare and that crush kept going through the Nightmare films she appeared in. I saw her interviewed recently and I have to say she still looks really good. There was a remake of the original but I have to be honest in the fact I haven’t seen it, I have heard mixed reviews towards the remake and I am sure I will watch it at some point but right now I am not interested in re-inventing the wheel, but curiosity will get me eventually.  

With the Freddy Kruger figure we have an interesting bit of cool ideas mixed with less than stellar applications. The head sculpt doesn’t resemble Robert Englund in the slightest nor does it really match any of the Freddy make-up he wore. Much has been said about the terrible paint jobs received on the eyes, in some cases I have heard of the eyes being painted on the check of the figure. In the case of the one I have gotten the eyes are not great, they look ok from the front but from below the right side can be seen on the brows of the eyes and very off the mark. I have yet to actually see one of these figures that the eyes are painted right (and only heard of one or two that are, but not seen them as I said) which is a shame as this is one of those iconic characters of American culture.  

There are several paint flaws as you can see, again I wish Neca could have gotten a handle on things with the paint and Freddy, he has potential to be a great action figure. He also has the same wrist articulation as Leatherface but only in his ungloved hand. He really needed that articulation in his gloved hand. The hand itself is a pretty decent mold though and he can grab the chin of a hapless victim rather easily, so the figure isn’t a total loss.  

I was surprised that the Fedora was removable from Freddy’s head. He also comes with a trash can lid, at first I was confused until I finally rewatched the original Nightmare on Elm Street and realized it was part of that film. Another point is the shoulders do not allow for a very broad range of motion (mostly up and down) and although the elbows can compensate for some of that, the shoulders would be really great to have with better articulation.  

But for the most part Freddy is a practice in what could be or could have been, on paper the figure hits all the marks but in actuality the flaws and lack of care cause him to fall short. Still it’s Freddy and is likely to be the only Freddy Kruger figure ever in this scale, and thus becomes a must have even with the flaws and unfortunately I think Neca was counting on that to boost sales. Sadly it probably worked.  

Next up is the king of the bad luck day, Jason Voorhees. Friday the 13th is really the movie that grabbed my attention as a kid. The first film really stuck out in its time and was required viewing for everyone in my grade school. I snuck and saw it on cable and it scared the hell out of me, but not in the typical “scared” way, it’s hard to explain but I wanted more. The first movie is more of a murder mystery than a horror movie though which always made me wonder why it didn’t get as much critical credit. I thought it might be the gore, but several films before had equal or even greater gore and were more well received. Who knows but the response to the first film was even more intense than the film itself. Siskle and Ebert (in what I feel is possibly the lowest act both of these men ever committed) actually published actress Betsy Palmer’s (Who played Jason’s mother) home address to send her hate mail. Think about that for a second, an actress’s HOME ADRESS! This was after the shooting of John Lennon and most everyone took privacy of famous people a bit more seriously. The point being that Siskel and Ebert are probably lucky some deranged nut didn’t try anything. It is something I tend to point out to people who still say film critics “know better about movies” than us common people. Big shock, critics have no more training in film than the rest of us and generally they get reviews way wrong. There is no degree for film critics and often in newspapers the only reason the film critic gets their job is no one else will take it. Many try to use film critic columns to attempt to step up to reporter. The old expression “Everyone’s a critic” is absolute truth.  

But none of that can change the reality of critics don’t like horror movies (generally). The first film was great and the second film gave us the villain that would endure for the rest of the decade, Jason (at least as the main villain of the series). Parts 2 and 3 really appealed to me and to this day remain some of my favorite horror movies right alongside the Ramero Living Dead Films. Part 4 was a different animal. I suppose that the reality is even back then when it was first released I knew it wasn’t going to be the final chapter. Also Corey Feldman just didn’t seem the guy who should have been allowed to finish off Jason. Part five was, what it was, I later kind of appreciated it for an attempt to change up the idea of kids at camp cause eventually that pony gets old. I still think the execution leaves a good deal to be desired. Part six was an attempt to clean up the mess made by the two previous films, which it does somewhat and we are left with Jason once more. Part seven with the telekinetic girl was a bit of a whiplash effect. Then again is it that hard to believe a world that contains a vengeful creature that keeps rising from the dead would also have people with telekinetic powers. Part eight was one of those films I know I watched but I can barely remember anything from it. I remember Jason in the sewers of Manhattan getting hit by waves of something and I also remember a gang getting scared when he took off his mask, but that is about it. I remember seeing the ad for the movie and chuckling, even the most serious voice couldn’t say “Jason takes Manhattan” without making the person hearing it giggle. Part nine, Jason goes to Hell made me scratch my head through most of it. The body switching reminded me of part five as in a bunch of faker Jason’s. Then jumping into the sister’s, uh, orifice at the end was just too much. It was somewhat laughable to say the least. This is one of those films (along with eight) that is all too eager to prove the critics right that this is pure trash cinema. The last movie in the franchise, Jason X (I suppose X is supposed to be for ten, but who can be sure with that movie and how it was marketed later), has to be one of the funniest films I have ever seen. I watched it in a theater waiting on Spider-Man which had sold out until a later show. I remember everyone in the theater being totally pissed except me and my buddies who knew walking in this movie was going to suck. There is also the infamous remake that I have tried to watch but each time I lose interest and I have only seen it in pieces. Needless to say I just didn’t think it’s very good.  

I hadn’t mentioned Freddy vs. Jason before, the reason being is its probably my favorite of them all and no one was more surprised by this fact besides myself. I thought it was very cleaver how Freddy and Jason worked together and eventually came to blows. I will admit it’s much more like an action film than a horror film, but in the end of this film all of us were more concerned with the fight between them is the most important thing and scares are near impossible to pull off with that kind of a battle. The battle is awesome, everything you could want from a fight between two titans.  

So that is a lot to say about the Friday the 13th films, but there is a lot of films too so that could be why.   

With the figure, the articulation in the shoulders does not have the problems Freddy does. I do think that the Leatherface wrists would have been helpful. After looking at Freddy’s face sculpt I wonder if the Jason on is so hard to identify because it’s so far off the mark. Jason’s make up changed with every film because there were different make-up artists. Still this sculpt is hard to figure out which movie it came from but at the same time it’s not a huge deal with Jason.   

He comes with an axe and his signature machete (Which oddly disappeared during photography and just as mysteriously reappeared after photography was over).  

Really what more can I say, he pretty much is a perfect representation of the hockey masked killer and is a must have for any collector who even watched those films as a kid. Probably why he sold the best as I have never seen him in the stores. I got mine online in a set and honestly doubt I would have been able to get him otherwise.  

So this line apparently died, which in most cases would be ok cause it would just rise back up later. Still I wonder what Neca might have been up to with the obvious lack of follow up. Maybe a few years from now we might get a continuation but for now I am not holding my breath. I figure just enjoy what we have and if we get more great.  

For Halloween, sit back, relax and enjoy the terror and the cheese in all of its gory glory, it’s a fun time of years, and the toys defiantly reflect that.