With Halloween right around the corner, it’s time for a little murderous, homicidal reviewage.
Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kreuger and Leatherface are three of the biggest horror icons there are. And now, they’re some of the smallest. Mezco’s Cinema of Fear line has expanded to include three well-articulated 3 3/4 inch figures tocapitalize on the growing 1/18th sale frenzy gripping toy companies.
Right away, I have to say how nice it is to have the level of articulation present in these guys. Many other
offerings of these characters from either McFarlane, Mezco and so on have been iffy in articulation, with versions produced that while looking good on a shelf, don’t offer quite the same killing range of other toylines. I like my toys to move, and these don’t disappoint. They average about 15 points of articulation each, and the articulation works well. Let’s take a look at each figure:
First up, from Friday the 13th, Jason is my favorite of the line, so much so that I’ve bought him twice (I did that with another in the line also, but for reasons I’ll get into later). Jason made his first appearance as an NYCC special edition with a glow in the dark mask, which was also put up for a brief time on Mezco’s website. This is the same figure, without the GITD mask, but with a brand new bloodstained axe. Plus! A new, darker paint job. And the lack of GITD effect means no tell-tale greenish hue to his mask.
Jason can get into some great killing poses and holds both weapons tight. Supertight, even. Nobody takes Jason’s machete from him. His look seems to be based around the 4th movie, back when Corey Feldman was a young annoying kid and not an older annoying grown man.
The face under the mask is well-sculpted, and only a mother could…well, no a mother really couldn’t love that face either. Besides, she went nuts and lost her head so who cares what she thinks anyway.
There’s a bit of limitation to his hasbroesque styled elbows, but otherwise he can pull off a lot of poses. He’s
already killed at least three of my toys because they were having sex. But that’s an issue for an entirely
different column…
Up next is Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Also bought twice, but this was due to two factors that were appropriately horrible, but not the feelgood “slicing up some screaming teens” type of horrible. His left arm dropped off right out of the package, and then his right leg dropped off right at the ball. With zero effort. I was thrilled about this. My second Leatherface seems sturdy and fine, but that, in a word, sucked.
Anyway, something that could kill a Leatherface figure (other than dismemberment) would be the inability to hold his chainsaw. Thankfully, he’s got a nice set of single elbows and hinged/swivel wrists that mean he can hold his chainsaw perfectly in several poses. This can only mean dinner’s going to be served soon.
Speaking of chopping people up, Leatherface’s clothes, chainsaw and little tenderizing hammer are appropriately blood spattered, and highlight how much detail was put into all three figures, but Leatherface especially. The smaller figures get a bad reputation due to prejudices and the feeling that smaller toys are for kids, but the detail, sculpting and paintjob on these don’t evoke that at all.
And finally, Freddy Kreuger from Nightmare on Elm Street. If I have a problem with any of these, Freddy suffers a bit, but only due to some weird proportions that make his legs look stumpy and a face that seems a bit too stylized. But other than that I still like him. His trademark glove is well done with plenty of detail, and his articulation continues the same trend as the others. He can pull off that cocky, relaxed stance from the movies, where he looks like he doesn’t really care if he kills you or not, but you know he’s going to, because his lunch date cancelled and he has nothing else to do.
Another nice touch is a removable hat, that stays on snugly but fits in his hand for when a lady is in the room (riiiight before he slices her open and she bleeds to death while asleep).
So overall, a very nice set, and if you’re a fan of the characters and not averse to the scale, well worth picking up, both for play and pose value.
Additional Links
