Top 10 Must-Own Horror Toys: Nightmare on Elm Street Edition
John Squires
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In 2008’s Cinema of Fear Series 2, Mezco released another Freddy figure and also gave some love to his main adversary, which is the first of only two toys ever released that depict Nancy Thompson – the other being Mezco’s Screen Grabs figure, which recreated the scene where Freddy bursts through the wall above a sleeping Nancy. This figure recreates another highly iconic encounter between Freddy and Nancy, a display piece that immortalizes the original film’s bathtub scene in plastic. To date, an actual “action figure” of Nancy still remains unreleased.
Mezco got even more creative in the fourth and final series of the Cinema of Fear line, at long last giving us a full action figure of one of Freddy’s victims. Alongside the aforementioned Freddy in surgical scrubs, this awesome figure of Dream Master’s Debbie “Roach Girl” Stevens was released in 2009, depicting her horrifically gruesome demise in the film. Not surprisingly, it didn’t sell too well and can be purchased nowadays for even less than it originally sold for. Nevertheless, it is in my opinion a standout gem in the world of Elm Street collectibles, and I can only hope that another toy company someday decides to give us more toys of Freddy’s victims.
Jumping ahead a couple years, Series 2 of NECA’s Nightmare on Elm Street line was released in 2011, comprised of figures based on Dream Warriors and Dream Master. It was the Dream Master figure that was the standout highlight of the two, immortalizing the final moments of the film – where various souls (including a topless Linnea Quigley!) rip and tear their way out of Freddy’s body. This one is a truly awesome figure, as well as an Elm Street display piece that is sure to spark conversation and bring back fond memories of the franchise’s memorable practical effects.
A few figures over the years have depicted a pre-burn Fred Krueger – including one from Sideshow Collectibles and another courtesy of NECA several years back – but none of them nailed the likeness of Robert Englund more than this more recent one from NECA, which was released back in 2013 as part of the fourth series of their Elm Street line. The head sculpt is absolutely dead-on accurate, and this is quite frankly the only “Springwood Slasher” figure you need to own.
