Starting now and continuing on for two more days, we embark on a special mission: Halloween slasher costumes...for kids. Now of course, there's been slasher costumes for kids for as long as there's been slashers, but the disguises I came across just had something different about them. They're more "official" than the usual lot, with a higher degree of quality and genuine attention to making the costumes look remotely like the characters they're based on. Plus, and I could just be making this up in my head because it's such a neat thought, the costumes all seem to have been crafted with a more "for kids" outlook than usual. The masks don't have "smiles" exactly, but they're a little less gruesome without losing any of the necessary naughty bits.
Freddy Vs. Jason and the abysmal remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has each helped to create a new legion of slasher fans. Jason and Freddy are enough a part of permapop culture to be recognizable even to the youngest of kids, but that isn't going to necessarily make fans of those kids. The new movies, like 'em or not, helped to make goofy impossible characters who kill people hip again. My nephew, a third grader I believe, was so excited the other day after my sister let him pick up the first F13 DVD. Not sure if my sister remembers the ending sequence of Mama's head being chopped off followed up by demonboy Jason popping out of the lake, but that's another story. I was so excited (and a bit proud) to see the kid dive into something sooo not in style in his social circle, just because he happened to think guys in hockey masks who slash up nude titty women were cool. It's for this reason that I've enlisted this particular nephew's help for this three-day series of Countdown entries. I also did it because the costumes don't fit me, but that was just the icing, I swear.
You can guess who'll be starring in the subsequent features, I'm sure. Today's focus is the incomparable Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. While I'd consider Freddy to be more popular than Jason by and large, we mustn't deny the fact that most kids (and old fools like us) believe Jason to be the cooler of the two. Voorhees has the silent sly factor that made everyone from Boba Fett to Creepy Thin Man such cult icons, and Freddy...well, he talks a lot, and most of what he says sounds like it came straight from the joke book you bought from Johnson Smith back in grade school. But hey, he's Freddy, he can be as lame as he wants so long as someone gets clawed and someone else gets their tendons turned into marionette strings for the good of a chuckle. Freddy, we salute you, and we buy your overpriced kiddy costumes.
Admittedly, the costume is a bit of a ripoff. You don't even get the damn glove. How any company could live with itself after pushing Freddy Krueger costumes sans glove is beyond my moral fibers to compute. Making matter worse, you don't even get Freddy's trademark hat. Why This Sucks Reason #39: generally speaking, Freddy is only seen without his hat when one of his opponents manages to beat him up. So kids who buy the costume and none of the accessories are stuck looking like one of the Dream Warriors just busted their shit up. I couldn't handle that. I had to go full monty.
I bought the hat, which is probably the best Freddy costume hat you can get outside of the really expensive "genuine" ones, where companies buy a boatload of regular store-bought fedoras and make 'em look all burnt and ugly. This variety only cost ten bucks, made of a pleasant brown foam that really helps to emphasize the various grooves, stains and scuff marks that make Freddy's headgear such a classic.
So yeah, the costume caught my eye right away -- I'm actually making Freddy the first of the series because it was his kiddy mask who inspired me to spend a lot of money on costumes I cannot possibly wear. With that, meet my nephew, who shall remain nameless for his protection because I'm not sure he wants the kids at school knowing that he gets photographed in spooky costumes on the weekends for, as far as he's concerned, no steadily apparent reason.
Oh come on, admit it -- it's pretty good! The mask is incredible (here's a closeup), featuring all of the nastiness that was the burned child molesting trademark of the man we love so very very much. I'm really digging the flap of flesh overlapping Freddy's lips, too. I've reused the ripoff Fright Glove to recreate Freddy's fabled claw.
The "sweater" is an all-polyvinyl affair, nothing too remarkable, but it serves its dirty purpose. With the right pants and removal of the obvious sports jersey peering from underneath, he'd actually look a lot like Freddy if Freddy ate Frosted Mini-Wheats and got young all over again. In a heartwarming role reversal of the ending shot from Freddy Vs. Jason, look close and you might notice Jason's head sitting on the couch. And you know who's responsible, dontcha? If Mumbles was charged with testifying, he'd say "Frdididit, Frddydidit." God I so hope at least one of you gets that.
See? It's hard to pinpoint what it is exactly, but there's something inherently youthful about that Freddy mask. Maybe it's the 567th burn mark located in the southernmost corner of the left cheek. I'm all for continuing a twenty year tradition of kids dressing up like Freddy Krueger, and can only hope Robert Englund keeps his wits and need for money with him well into his 70s. A+ for Kiddy Freddy. Check back tomorrow to see how another slasher fared in the overpriced child costume department. I'll give you a hint on who I'm talking about: Kane Hodder says he's the best one who ever played him, all the time, constantly, even to his mailman.
