Top 10 Must-Own Horror Toys: Nightmare on Elm Street Edition
John Squires
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In this recurring feature here on Dread, we’ve thus far shined the spotlight on the coolest toys from the majority of the big horror franchises, including Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Evil Dead. According to my calculations, that leaves only one left to tackle.
Freddy Krueger has been a merchandising powerhouse since he came onto the scene in 1984, with very few years passing by in the subsequent decades without the release of new Nightmare on Elm Street toys and goodies. NECA, Mezco, Sideshow, and McFarlane have all churned out Freddy figures over the years, making it incredibly difficult to pick and choose a mere ten.
That being said, I feel pretty confident that the list I currently hold in my hands represents the absolute best of the best. So without further delay, let’s take a look at the ten Nightmare on Elm Street toys every fan of the franchise absolutely needs in their collection!
We begin with the first Freddy Krueger toy that I ever owned, and which I still cherish to this day. In 1989, the same year The Dream Child was released, Matchbox put out this talking Freddy doll, which blurted out several sayings at the pull of a string. Shortly thereafter, the company removed the dolls from shelves amidst parental complaints – the character is a child molester, after all – with only 40,000 of them being shipped out before the protests began.
Around the time New Nightmare came out, a limited run of the same dolls – presumably leftovers from Matchbox – were released into Spencer Gifts stores, with new sayings and the pull string replaced with a push button activation. Mint in the box, the original Matchbox dolls sell for at least $100, but they can be found much cheaper if the boxes are damaged or missing altogether.
Toys sure have come a long way since I was a kid, as this 2012 release from Sideshow Collectibles serves as a perfect example of. Sideshow has put out several 12” Freddy figures over the years, based on franchise installments such as Dream Warriors and Freddy vs. Jason, and at the tail end of 2012 they gave the burnt-up dream demon their prestigious Premium Format treatment. Measuring 18″ tall, with real metal blades, and limited to 1,250 pieces, this incredible statue originally sold for $350 and now sells for nearly double that. Another Premium Format Freddy statue, based on Freddy vs. Jason, was also released by Sideshow.
Shortly after NECA put out a couple New Nightmare figures in 2005, Mezco spent a few years playing around on Elm Street, and their first order of business was inducting Freddy into the inaugural series of their Cinema of Fear line. Thinking outside the box and bringing something different to the table, Mezco decided to ditch the iconic striped sweater and instead throw Freddy in a tux, depicting him as he was in the hilarious “Where’s the f’ing bourbon?” scene from Dream Warriors – complete with the severed head of Kristen’s mom and even his own skeleton. The toy was released in 2007, and it was followed up by figures that saw Krueger dressed in a waiter’s outfit and surgical scrubs, based respectively on The Dream Child and Dream Master.
