Sunday, October 25, 2024

A Cuddly Kind of Horror

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've bought and own plush versions of slashers and maniacs, but it seemed like a good idea at the time... so here we are.

Spencer Gifts has long been a source for questionable items. When they put out this 18-inch tall plush Leatherface figure in '99, it wasn't the concept itself that I found shocking, it was the way that they had these relatively awful looking dolls stacked up by the door so that they terrified passing children.

Leatherface

As I've mentioned, I really love The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Leatherface is one of my favorite horror characters. Everything said and done, this version is more silly than scary, but even so, the real hair kind of creeps me out.

Leatherface

Of coarse the plush movie maniac idea has been around for a while, and one of the best examples is this 18-inch talking Freddy Krueger that Matchbox put out in 1989.

Freddy Krueger

Matchbox had done a great talking Pee-Wee Herman, as well as an equally charming Ed Grimly doll, so I suppose in some twisted alternate reality they'd decided that Freddy might make a decent third.

Freddy Krueger

The figure is very well made actually, with a removable hat and a nice knitted sweater. Twenty some odd years later mine still works, and when I pull the string on his back he shouts things like, "Hi, I'm Freddy!" and "Let's be friends."

What kid wouldn't fall in love with that?

1 comments:

Jay Amabile said...

i actually loved the Freddy doll when I was young, I thought his face/ head sculpt was so cool.