The King of Horror, nightmares sold separately

I knew they released figures for every single one of the 15,000 original characters that ever appeared on screen in The Simpsons, so they had to run out of toys eventually, right? Apparently not...

When I first saw that they were releasing figures based on the show's celebrity guest stars, my reaction was a little bit like "Jesus Christ, they've reached 3,000 miles beneath the bottom of the barrel." And then I saw they did one for Stephen King and was like "Stephen King has an action figure. That's kind of awesome." So, I knew I had to buy one. Unfortunately, it seems that horror fans all thought the same thing, because it's been a bit of a bugger to track down. It goes pretty much instantly out of stock whenever a store gets it and scalpers on eBay are charging about four times its retail price.

If you're a horror fan of a certain age, I think Stephen King and his works hold a bit of meaning to you. The '80s were filled with adaptations of his books, on the big screen and small, so they were kind of hard to ignore. I also remember my horror loving aunt's place being littered with his books and how I'd go to the library with her and get some of his stuff. (I think the first thing I read of his in its entirety was the story that Silver Bullet was based off of, Cycle of the Werewolf. I know that's a short story, but, hey, I was a kid.) Stephen King's a giant of horror, so I wanted this figure as part of my collection of horror figures.

It depressed me a little to hear stories of people getting to meet King at book signings, though. He's such a giant that so many people are waiting to meet him that it sounds like they're just all rushed through on a conveyor belt. One story I read was reminiscent of Ralphie meeting Santa in A Christmas Story -- like the person is placed in front of King, and before they were even able to say "hello," he's done scribbling an autograph while a couple of assistants/guards just kept pulling them along, shoving them down that slide, dashing their hopes of getting that Red Ryder air rifle.

The figure was released just in time for Encore's month-long Stephen King marathon, which has been fun. The thing doesn't really have the right yellow coloring of the Simpsons characters, though -- it looks more like one of those creepy butter sculptures. Still, it's cool to have a Stephen King figure...

NECA's Tater Sack Jason arrives

There are some of the old Cult Classics, Movie Maniacs and Sideshow figures that I regret not buying when they came out, because a lot of them go for high prices now. NECA's release(s) of Jason from Friday the 13th Part 2 -- the so-called "Tater Sack Jason" aka "Hillbilly Jason" -- is one of the figures I regret not buying. (Especially the box set that had Jason, Pamela and Jason's shrine for Pamela's decapitated head.) So, when I saw that NECA was releasing a retro-styled Part 2 figure, I wanted to buy it, even though I felt like I was just settling for that style of figure after missing out on the others. I'm not a big fan of the retro-styled dolls -- I can understand why people would like them, if that's the style of toys they grew up with. Me? I'm an '80s, Kenner kid, so I get a kick out of Funko's ReAction line more than the cloth dolls.

I had bought the Part 5 Jason/Roy retro-styled figure a few months ago basically because I'm one of the few fans of A New Beginning, and it was the first figure to represent that movie. It looked alright, but it didn't make me want to rush out and buy the other retro-styled horror figures NECA's done. But the newly released Part 2 figure, man...it's pretty nice. It kind of makes sense to have this look of Jason's be in the *clothed* retro style: the layered hillbilly get-up, the tater sack head... It's a nice looking figure, with neat little details like the dirtied sack. I'm very surprised by it and very pleased with the purchase. In my opinion, it definitely looks better and more screen accurate than the Sideshow version of Part 2 Jason and the molded action figure versions previously released by NECA. The look just really pops and comes across nicely in the retro style.

I'm a nerd, so I didn't want to open the packaging, so I'm curious how Jason looks under that hood. I'm assuming he has rooted hair and not molded hair, due to the way the sack is a little misshapen. Even if I opened it, I'd be afraid that I wouldn't get the sack tied on the same way and that would bug the heck out of me.

Jason's look in Part 2 is unique; his ordinary clothes, simple sack over his head and the way his make-up looks -- along with the way Steve Dash portrayed him -- made Part 2's Jason the most human seeming. The long haired Jason, the beard -- he certainly looked like someone who was presumed to have died and raised himself in a forest. (Someone also recently pointed out to me the way Part 2's Jason looks like a scarecrow. That's a neat idea, like Jason is a scarecrow scaring people away from his turf at Crystal Lake.) It's not a look that would have worked out for the entire series -- the popularity of the hockey mask proves that -- but I appreciate this different Jason look.

A neat figure, I recommend it. If you've been on the fence about these retro styled, clothed figures like I've been, I think this one will surprise you.

Horror comes to GSN's Skin Wars

The Game Show Network has a new series, a body art competition show called Skin Wars. The competing body artists are given themes to work with each week and the last episode challenged the artists to make themselves up as one of their big fears. (They usually paint models, but an extra part of this challenge was for them to apply the make-up on themselves.) Some of the artists did things like aging and arachnids, but artist Felle chose horror movies and came up with...

I just got a kick out of this. Part Freddy, part Pinhead. (There's also Heath Ledger's Joker and...I don't really recognize the other part below Pinhead.) Hellraiser always seemed to me like it's not on the radar as much as a Freddy or Jason, so I always like when it gets referenced somewhere. (As it did on a Community episode last season.) The artists on Skin Wars are given a couple of hours to complete their projects, so I think Felle's Pinhead and the Freddy burns turned out nicely. (These pics I took don't do it justice.)