Today is Halloween, which is an annual holiday originally created by the Hershey chocolate company whereupon little boys and girls travel from house to house and accumulate vast amounts of candy or there will be hell to pay. If you’ve never seen a 7-year-old girl dressed up like that “Let it Go” chick from Frozen ransacking a neighborhood because she didn’t get her quota of fun-size Snickers, then consider yourself a very lucky person because it will give you nightmares.
Sugar and spice and everything nice my perky posterior.
But Halloween is also a time for other traditions, chief among them is watching scary movies. Do you like scary movies? When we watch scary movies, we toughen up the fear receptors in our brains, which means that the demons that are set loose on Halloween night that feed on that fear end up starving to death, and it takes them a full year to regain their strength. Before scary movies, the demons roamed free and fed deeply. Sure, we tried to toughen ourselves up by telling ghost stories, but the rise of the cinematic abominations we all know and love means that we’re more and more desensitized, and therefore the demons have less to feed on.
Let’s take a look at some horror movie characters that need some great action figures.
Christopher Lee’s Dracula
There have been so many takes on Stoker’s creation, from Max Schreck’s Nosferatu to Bela’s immortal take to Frank Langella and even Gary Oldman (and so many in between), but Christopher Lee’s Dracula has this innate toynamic appeal that would make for a great action figure. If Mezco could get the rights to the Hammer Horror movies, this would be right up their One:12 alley, but I’d be perfectly content with NECA. Throw in an alternate, fang-bearing bloody head and this would be a figure to terrorize all others.
Christopher Lee returned again and again to Dracula, even as the quality of the movies began to degrade. At 6-foot-5 with a regal bearing and a face that could be at once stately and terrifying, there is little wonder how his take on Dracula has become as iconic as Lugosi’s.
Cyborg Jason from Jason X
So yeah, I’m following up Christopher Lee’s Dracula with Jason in space. Suck it, taste nazis! The Friday the 13th movies had reached a point where Crystal Lake’s killing grounds were drying up. There’s only so many ways you can kill a group of unsuspecting teenagers. Well, there are literally thousands of ways, but sometimes you have to break out of your comfort zone. For Jason, that meant getting his ass cryo-freezed and shot into space with a handful of hapless corpse-to-bes. If you have to wonder why this happened and what the hell were they thinking, then you are not the audience for this film, which is surprisingly entertaining.
When you take a beloved horror icon and decide to upgrade him into a cybernetic Jasonator, then you’re clearly playing outside the rule book. McFarlane made a very static version a while ago, but while NECA has made several versions of the hockey-masked slut-killer, the cyborg version remains as untouched as the annoying kid at camp. That, to me, is a gigantic shame because it would make a kickass figure. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter, except better, because chocolate and peanut butter only kills dogs and diets.
Leprechaun
Speaking of throwing horror movie icons into space, this franchise did the same thing. Again, surprisingly entertaining if you’re into that sort of thing, Warwick Davis also starred in five other movies that were not in space, rhyming and killing all for the sake of “me gold.” If this dude doesn’t get his shilling, then there will be a killing. And I will go on record that you’ve never seen somebody so buried under a ton of prosthetics and makeup have just as much fun as he did, chewing scenery left and right and tossing out more rhymes than a freestyle rap contest.
And yes, we do get a Leprechaun rap because he went to the hood. Twice. This series is insane, and the Leprechaun needs a figure. SOTA had one planned a long time ago, but an even better one could be made now.
Jack Torrance
Jack Nicholson, you’re killing me, man. I mean, I know when you’re Jack Nicholson you can do whatever the hell you want, but the stinginess with which you handle your likeness rights kills so much awesomeness that could be out there. Your version of the Joker will never be made outside of Hot Toys, and your Jack Torrance from The Shining will never creep out all the rest of my toys. I’m sure when you’re lying on a bed made of money and women the thought of action figures doesn’t cross your mind, but still, those eyebrows need to be immortalized in action figure form, you know? I mean, you don’t get to be Jack Nicholson without having some small amount of ego, wouldn’t you like to carry a little pocket version of yourself around?
Wouldn’t we all?
Give him an axe, a baseball bat and a typewriter and there you’d have it.
And finally,
The security robot from Chopping Mall
This one is both an army builder and just awesome. If you have not seen Chopping Mall — a movie about horny teens stuck in a mall while rolling security robots try to kill them — then don’t even finish this sentence, just go right out and watch it now.
I’ll wait.
There’s boobs, so I’ll wait.
If you’re back and you took my advice, then you have to agree that you need to have a few security robots in your life. These things are like if Robocop and KITT had sex with a Dalek, except not even close because that’s not even scratching the surface of the level of badass these things reach.
Give them grabby hands and real rolling treads. Give them light up eyes. Do whatever you have to do to make these things look as insane as possible.
Murdered janitor sold separately.
