POP! 8-Bit: Jason Voorhees (NES version)

Horror video games have a long, and often trashy history. For every Resident Evil, there’s at least three more crappy cash-ins that simultaneously typify the worst about video games and horror.

1989’s Friday the 13^th for the NES is one of the latter. It’s acquired a cult following, but it really wasn’t well-received at the time – or even afterwards*. Developer LJN was notorious for releasing terrible licensed video games for the NES (including a very so-so adaptation of A Nightmare on Elm Street), which have mostly been lost to history. Yet here we are in 2018 holding a piece of official Friday the 13^th video game merchandise – what a world we live in!

Part of Funko’s relatively new 8-bit subline, Jason is designed to look as though he’s stepped straight out of a mid-to-late 80s video game. However, his design isn’t strictly accurate; he appears to be an 8-bit version of his Freddy vs Jason self, with a jacket and stray hairs on the side of his head. But he is coloured to match the look of the NES game.

Now, you would be right in saying that purple and blue are not very “Jason” colours**, but the 8-bit era of gaming used plenty of idiosyncratic artwork. It’s just the nature of art meeting technology, with both often coming up short in the process.

I suspect its release is in large part due to NECA. Y’see, in 2013 NECA released a glow-in-the-dark version of Jason as a convention exclusive. As you might have guessed, that Jason was styled to look just like he does in the NES game. It was very well received by fans (eventually getting a slightly altered retail release) and sparked new interest in the game. There hasn't been a ton of merchandise since, but there's definitely been an upturn in what's been produced. Well done to Funko for riding this decidedly unusual trend.

While I’ve seen customs of the original Jason POP painted to match the game, this is not a figure I really expected to see mainstream release. It's great in or out of the box, a distinctive piece for your shelf that captures a fringe part of both Friday the 13^th fandom. My only real complaint is that he doesn’t glow!

*The Angry Video Game Nerd had quite a bit to say about it back in 2006.

**There’s also a version in regular colours, which seems to be the more widely available of the two. This NES version is a Gamestop exclusive in the USA. You can also get a Freddy in both regular and NES colours too. 

Pint Size Heroes (Horror) – Jason Voorhees

Well, we’re now well into October – just two weeks from Halloween, in fact. Now Halloween didn’t mean a lot to me as a kid; during my childhood it was treated as either with suspicion as a sign of America’s cultural imperialism, or with outright hostility as a sign of the devil’s work. I still see plenty of people doing both those things now – but for the most part I’ve really enjoyed seeing the holiday more widely adopted in Australia during my lifetime.

And for Halloween aficionados, this October was more special than most, as it was also host to a Friday the 13th. Now while I think that the superstitions surrounding the date of Friday the 13th are complete bullshit, I am a fan of the Friday the 13^th films. Which is how we tenuously lead into the subject of today’s review – the Pint Size Hero version of Jason Voorhees, from Funko. 

Pint Size Heroes are one of Funko’s latest additions to their ever-expanding line of cutesy, stylised collector’s toys. They’re tiny standing only around 1.5” high, and given some rough sense of height and proportion to differentiate themselves from one another via their differing head sizes. The most obvious point of comparison is their Dorbz range, but obviously smaller.

When Funko announced a horror range, it was a total non-surprise that Jason Voorhees was included. He was the very first POP! Movies character released, and a very safe bet in terms of driving sales. Being a Jason fan I’m naturally pleased about this, but I do hope they dig a little deeper in future lines and get some characters that we haven’t already had in POP form. 

This particular figure is based on Jason’s appearance in Friday the 13th: Part III, so he’s kind of plain. Hockey mask, work shirt and pants, with none of the various stages of undeath that would could later down the track. Given that Freddy’s also included in this series, I was surprised that they didn’t go for the Freddy vs Jason look, but perhaps there’s some kind of licensing issue.

Paint is not great. I picked up two other characters at the same time, and Jason is easily the worst of the three. The tampographs making up his pants and shirt are kind of misaligned, while the mask and strapping is a bit sloppy. I suspect that the mask is likely to be an across-the-board issue, but I imagine the issue with the tampographing is more of a one-off.

While ultimately not as cool as Mystery Minis or POPs, Pint Size Heroes are still far better than Dorbz. I have no interest in completing the collection for this line, but there are a few key characters that I was happy to add to the collection – you should see my take on them on here in the next few days.  

POP! Movies: Jason Voorhees – Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning

Friday the 13^th Part V: A New Beginning really splits fans of the franchise. To cut a long story short, the film flashes forward a few years from Part IV, and in spite of his apparent death, “Jason” shows up again. Things unfold as they do in any Friday the 13^th film, but this time the killer isn’t actually Jason – it’s a paramedic named Roy Burns, who’s wearing an elaborate Jason costume and avenging his own son’s death.

Kudos must go to the producers for trying something a bit different, but fans did not react well and to this day it’s one of the least-loved films in the series. Unsurprisingly, the real Jason was back in the forefront for Part VI, and has remained there ever since.

I’ve only seen Part V once myself from memory (probably on VHS back in 2003 or 2004) and I remember being less than impressed. But horror is a genre that favours the unusual, and naturally it’s picked up a cult following in the years since its release.

This figure was part of a range of Hot Topic-exclusive blind boxes, rolled out just in time for Halloween 2016 – and Jason is clearly the one who got the short end of the stick in the tooling budget. Alex was a new sculpt, Pinhead got a new body (not to mention the glowing head) and Beetlejuice got an elaborate paint scheme. Conversely, Jason reuses the original figure’s head and the body from the Michael Myers POP.

In spite of the reuse, this “Jason” is a good exclusive; not essential for more casual fans but worth tracking down if you’re a completist. Paint could be slightly better, but Roy Burns-based Friday the 13^th merchandise isn’t hugely plentiful, so sometimes you just need to take what you can get.I’m no huge fan of the film, but he’s a neat variation.  

Funko Mystery Minis Horror Classics Series 3: Jason Voorhees

We looked at Freddy a couple of weeks ago, so now it’s time to take a squiz at his most famous foe – Jason Voorhees, of Friday the 13th fame.

This is actually the second time Jason has had a Mystery Mini, with his first coming back in Series 1. While that was more of a generic Jason – though arguably from Freddy Vs Jason – this new one is based on his look in Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen the film, but I remember it being (like virtually all the films in the series) a bit of a mixed bag. There was a psychic teenage girl who he battles, and probably could have made a decent ongoing foe for Jason, similar to Tommy Jarvis from Parts 4-6. But the series has never been known for its coherent storyline, and so she disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.

By this point, Jason was a heavily decayed and monstrous corpse, having now been resurrected numerous times. He actually looks pretty great, with the exposed bones, rotting clothes and beat-up mask… at least until his mask breaks off at the end, and he suddenly looks like a cross between the Cryptkeeper and a Muppet. Gross, but more at the silly end of the spectrum, rather than frightening.

Fortunately, this Mini replicates his masked look, turning a gory design into something surprisingly cutesy. Part of the iconic hockey mask is broken away, revealing how much his flesh has decayed around his mouth. Bones poke through many surfaces, where the clothing and skin alike have rotted away. Unusually, he’s armed with an axe rather than his signature machete. I’m sure he hacks into someone with it at some point during the film, but I honestly don’t remember.

Packed at a 1/24 ratio, this is not a definitive Jason, so it’s a little less essential – but it’s a very cool look for him nonetheless. Post Freddy vs Jason and the 2009 remake, these later films in the series are often a bit overlooked when it comes to merchandising of the character. NECA have given it a red-hot go, but it’s nice to see other companies step up and take their turn too. 

POP! Movies – Jason Voorhees (Glow in the Dark Chase Edition)

Year: 2011

Series: POP! Movies

RRP: See below…

I watched a LOT of horror films between the ages 18 and 25, ranging from more tame, mainstream fare through to the highly disturbing and Z-grade. The Friday the 13^th series really straddles both worlds – though Jason is a pretty iconic protagonist/villain, a lot of the films are objectively terrible. Camp sensibilities get more and more pronounced as the series goes on, but the energy just isn’t there to sustain it, especially in clunkers like Jason Takes Manhattan. Some of the latter-day instalments like Jason X and Freddy vs Jason were certainly not masterpieces, but at least they were self-aware enough to be fun. So though I definitely used to be a fan, I don’t have strong reasons to recommend other people spend their time watching them! There are plenty of better films – horror and otherwise – to watch. 

But as I said, Jason is iconic. He’s a character who has grown much larger than the films that spawned him, thanks in no small part to his hockey mask. He’s also not an entirely unsympathetic character – Freddy Krueger was a bad, bad man before becoming an undead nightmare monster, Pinhead was a total hedonist, and Michael Myers was a psychopath from childhood. Jason, on the other hand, was a child with some kind of severe medical issue who was unfortunate enough to drown at a summer camp. His motivations are never really explored, but you can extrapolate that this may have played a role in why he acts the way he does.

At any rate, he is a sure-fire movie merchandising success these days, so it’s not really surprising that he was one of the first POPs Funko produced. Jason has had a number of looks through the different movies – not surprising, given that the series has had numerous changes in direction, many different people handling the mythos and multiple actors playing the character. This figure looks to be mostly based on his appearance in Freddy vs Jason, which, while not as detailed as his appearance in some of the other films, is a nice “generic” look for him. It captures how the public tends to think of him, even if it’s not entirely reflective of most of the actual films. His machete is spattered in blood, unsurprisingly. Jason hacks up just about everyone he runs into, which skews against Funko’s cutesy aesthetic, but is certainly character-accurate.

Paint is pretty good (what a shock!), but the mask is a little rough with the way the grey is applied around the holes. This is accentuated a little as the mask is not painted – it’s cast in glow plastic, so errors couldn’t really be covered up with other paint, as you could theoretically do with the regular release. Nothing especially problematic, particularly considering that this is one of Funko’s older figures when paint was regularly much, much worse than this.  

Overall, it’s a good example of the kind of figure I like from Funko’s earlier years. While the more detailed sculpts they use now are still frequently very cool, I like the simplicity of the older ones – it didn’t work perfectly for every character, but it helped give a slightly more unified aesthetic to the your collection. 

Now…to cost. As Jason here is a chase version, some retailers will just sell him at the same price as a regular POP, if you can actually find him. I’m not sure if Funko has re-released this figure, or if this is genuinely old stock that has just shown up in store now. I came across him in an EB Games store in Sydney a couple of months ago, and he was just sitting in among all of the rest of their POP section. I paid RRP, but on eBay he goes for absolutely silly money. So think wisely before going ahead with the purchase – the only real difference I can see is that his mask glows in the dark, so the “regular” version is perfectly serviceable. Don't get me wrong, I love glow in the dark stuff! Just not at that kind of price tag. 

I don’t watch a lot of horror anymore – I don’t get time to watch a lot of movies, and I don’t have the same stomach for gore – but Jason is a well-made POP and a fun reminder of those younger days. Now, if only they’d make some Zombie Flesh Eaters POPs…  

FLASHBACK REVIEW! Freddy vs Jason -- NECA Jason Voorhees

Company: NECA

Year: 2004

Scale: 7” (?)

In 2003, a film was released that horror fans had been waiting years for – Freddy vs Jason. Opinions on it vary wildly, but it was reasonably successful at the box office and was, if nothing else, an entertaining piece of trash cinema. A part of me is still quite disappointed that the oft-discussed Freddy vs Jason vs Ash never saw release on a cinema screen.

One piece of merchandise that was released in its wake was a 2-pack from NECA featuring both the titular characters, complete with a semi-diorama of flaming timber floorboards (from their fight near the end of the film). 19-year-old me was a huge fan of the film, so I picked up this bad boy as soon as I could afford it. 

Freddy’s head has been lost to time (which consigned the rest of him to the bin) but Jason has stayed tucked away in my parent’s garage for almost ten years. Recently I pulled him out, thinking that there might be some good photo ops for him, now that I own a bunch of NECA figures. But how does he hold up to modern NECA standards?   

SCULPT AND ARTICULATION

It has been a long, long time since I watched any of the Friday the 13^th films, so I don’t recall whether this is a particularly accurate sculpt. It certainly conveys the vibe well – Jason was less elaborate-looking in this film than he was in some of the earlier releases, and I don’t see any details leaping out at me as “wrong”. But the first thing you’re likely to notice about Jason is that he’s BIG. Ostensibly in 7” scale, Jason towers over a modern Predator. I know he’s meant to be a tall guy – but not that tall.  

NECA went the extra mile and made the mask removable. I couldn’t tell you how accurate the head sculpt is beneath the mask – I don’t remember ever getting a good look at his unmasked (adult) face in any of the movies (except perhaps Friday the 13^th, Part 2? It’s been years since I watched any of them…). However, it sure is impressively ugly -- and he kind of looks like a pirate…

 Ch-ch-ch....Arr-arr-arr

As for articulation? Well, there’s not a lot by modern standards. His neck, right shoulder, left shoulder, left elbow and waist all have cuts in them, rather than hinges or swivels. He’s more than a statue, but not much more. This didn’t bother me at the time, of course. I preferred sculpt to articulation (still do) and the only massively articulated figures I knew of at the time were Marvel Legends – most of which seemed shockingly ugly, 700 points of articulation or not – who wanted a Jason like that?

Now we live in a different era, where you can have good articulation and a good sculpt working in tandem (and to be fair, a lot of those old Marvel Legends figures actually looked quite good). By these standards, Jason would be totally unacceptable to many. But he’s a product of his times, and judged on those standards I think he holds up pretty well.      

ACCESSORIES

Jason comes with two accessories – his machete and his iconic hockey mask. As mentioned above, his mask is removable. Time may be fogging my memory here, but I seem to recall that that it was actually magnetised, to attach to Freddy’s claws. The level of detail in the sculpting and paint is admirable, and although I’m careful with my stuff, I’m still quite impressed that the cords haven’t snapped over the years.

The machete is okay, but not great. It’s cast in black, with a thin silver line drybrushed on the edge of the blade. There’s been a little bit of warping over the years, but nothing major.  And it would work just as well with almost any other similar-scale figure, such as Dutch or one of the Predators.  

PAINT

When I bought this guy, I was amazed at the paint work. I knew that McFarlane and NECA could produce some great stuff, but I’d never owned any before, so I hadn’t really seen it up close. Ten years later, it’s certainly not bad, but perhaps seems a little basic by modern standards. Part of this is the colour scheme of the character – this iteration of Jason didn’t really lend himself to flashy paintjobs. It’s no Dutch or Lost Predator, but it doesn’t embarrass itself by comparison.   

OVERALL

Back in 2004, this two-pack retailed for approximately $60AUD, but I picked it up on sale for $30 at Electronics Boutique (now EB Games) – still a lot of money for a poor uni student at the time, but good value nonetheless. I miss the old days when EB had far too many toys and would eventually just mark everything down to crazy prices. But on that basis, I can definitely understand why they stopped stocking toys for years!  

This is also indicative that NECA’s prices really haven’t risen too drastically over the last 10 years. The average figure retails for $34.95AUD, though smart shoppers can often find them for around the $29.95 mark.  

From a sculpting perspective, Jason still holds up quite well, and paint is still well within the acceptable range. Articulation will be the big factor that prevents people from seeing him in a positive light. So I wouldn’t recommend going to any real lengths to track him down, but he’s a good snapshot of a particular style of collector’s toy in the noughties.