Halloween

The Halloween Grab Bag!
The Freddy Krueger Face & Makeup Kit!
by: -RoG-

It's well known that Freddy Krueger has always been my favorite of the big horror movie icons. From his crazy kills and classic one-liners to his tv show and his totally unique style, the guy knows how to keep horror audiences entertained. The problem is, come Halloween, it can be difficult to get that classic Freddy Krueger look down without shelling out a lot of cash for a high quality mask. Sure, with guys like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, you can just put on a decent mask and have a fairly solid looking Halloween costume, but Freddy's face is horribly burned and requires a lot more detail in order to look right.

That brings us to today's topic: The Freddy Krueger Face & Makeup Kit. This was one of the many officially licensed makeup kits that gave you the chance to turn yourself into Freddy Krueger. Limited only by your own skills (and what they included in the kit), these things sold like hotcakes to any Freddy fan. I've had this one in a box for many years and decided it was time to pull it out and prove what I've always said about these cheap kits: they just don't work well.

Freddy's grimacing face is right there on the front of the kit, convincing us all that we'll soon no doubt be looking just as horribly burned as he is. Either that, or that facial expression is his way of warning us just how awful this kit really is. Let's flip it over and see how accurate it is.

Alright, it still doesn't look to shabby in the photos here. Granted, we're not all going to put on a bald cap to cover our entire heads, nor do we share the same bone structure as Robert Englund, so there's gotta be some leeway with a makeup kit. What does concern me, however, is the fact that they photoshopped much of the makeup onto these photos. If you look closely, the makeup in the second photo is almost entirely photoshopped on there, what with all the shadows removed and the makeup filling in the exact same tear areas on Freddy's sweater. This doesn't bode well, but enough critiquing of the packing; it's time to test out this makeup kit.

First thing's first, I had to tie my hair up and clip it back to try keeping it out of my face so that this makeup won't get all over it. For all I know, once this makeup has aged a certain amount of time, it can set your hair on fire... I'm going for accurate, but not that accurate. The next step is to position the included facepiece onto your face and lightly outline it. My good friend Shannon volunteered to apply this makeup kit to my face, and after seeing her "light outline" of the facepiece, my fears about how this would turn out were already feeling justified.

Also, before even being colored in, I could easily tell that they got the facepiece all wrong. I mean, just look at that nose. It's way larger than my nose and it's so squashed down that it looks more like the face of somebody who had a career in pugilism.

With the light outline in place, the next step was to apply the included adhesive to the facepiece and then press it onto my face until it dried. The adhesive comes in little packets that look almost identical to the frosting packets that come with Pillsbury toaster strudels. I wouldn't recommend eating it those, because it smells almost exactly like Elmer's glue.

Problem is, the stuff came out extremely clumpy. If a yeti was to pick its nose, this is what I imagine it would look like. Shannon tried her best, but it was really hard to work with the stuff. We actually considered using real glue to apply this thing to my face, but the whole point of this was to use only what was included with the makeup kit and nothing more. I'm willing to concede that it is possible that the adhesive hardened a bit over the years, so I won't blame the company who produced this for that. The facepiece, however... that hasn't changed a bit.

After applying a few of the adhesive clumps to my face, I started feeling like I was in some nasty bukake practical joke, but we managed to get the facepiece to stay... for about 30 seconds. Then it started sliding down my face and covering up my eyes, so we decided to clip it onto my hair while I continued to press the facepiece onto the glue spots hoping it would eventually stick a little better.

In the meantime, Shannon took one of the included makeup sponges and started applying the first of the colors to the facepiece and my face.

Soon I looked as though I had feces smeared all over my face, and truthfully, that may have worked better than this makeup kit was turning out. We also found bits of the brown makeup all over the couch and have no idea how it got on there. Wait, I know. Maybe it wasn't makeup. Maybe I actually shit myself when I saw how my face looked after it was all said 'n done:

And here it is, after spending far too long trying to get the makeup to blend together nicely and highlighting some of the wounds, this is how it turned out. I've said it before and I'll say it again: these things never look right. But wait! Don't judge this makeup kit yet, for I haven't put on the included false teeth, nor have I put on the trademark glove and fedora.

Ok, so I didn't have the fedora on hand, but I did find an Abraham Lincoln hat in the closet, so that'll have to make do. Of course, I didn't have Freddy's striped sweater on hand either, but I like to think Abraham Krueger is the kind of guy who would wear an ED-209 Robocop t-shirt. Agreed? Good.

With the Freddy Krueger Makeup Kit all used up, it was time to say sweet dreams to my lovely assistant, Shannon. She did her best considering what she had to work with, and if you ask me, it still looks on par with the quality of Freddy's make-up in the recent Elm Street remake film. So be sure to keep one eye open tonight, kiddies, because Abraham Krueger wants to four score with you in your nightmares! If it makes you feel any better, I know I won't be getting much sleep tonight either...


...for I'm going to be awake for quite some time trying to get all this shit off of my face.

Have any questions or comments about this piece?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE READER COMMENTS SECTION BELOW!

 

Reader Comments

Member
Sep 5th, 2011, 07:00 AM
You're a brave man, putting all that ancient makeup on your face! I think that little mask that came in the kit looks more like the puppet from Saw than Freddy. At any rate, Abraham is by far the cooler Krueger.
WHAT'S THIS?!
Sep 5th, 2011, 08:58 AM
The pirate piece is still my favorite makeup piece, but I enjoyed this nonetheless
Sloth, PhD
Sep 5th, 2011, 02:43 PM
Congratulations on getting heavy metal poisoning from the make-up!
sadomasochist
Sep 5th, 2011, 03:21 PM
the fuck? that is the strangest thing i have ever seen!
very cool though:D
Forum Virgin
Sep 5th, 2011, 04:04 PM
I feel like you can achieve almost the same thing if you smear peanut butter on your face, lol.
aint nobody
Sep 5th, 2011, 05:56 PM
I used that same thing 10+ years ago, it looks like someone partially skinned the face off of Elmer Fudd's corpse

Seem to remember that adhesive not sticking too well until it was time to remove it, at which point I lost some skin and hair
Buttmunch
Sep 5th, 2011, 06:34 PM
Great article, but i think you got a mislabeled Troll kit.
pickled
Sep 5th, 2011, 10:37 PM
You looked more like a mudman than Freddy.
Forum Virgin
Sep 5th, 2011, 10:54 PM
It makes a really good leatherface mask though.
Forgetable Cyborg
Sep 6th, 2011, 05:45 PM
What was the point in including only half a face piece? I guess including more would just make it a mask and further drive home the fact that a good Freddy make-up job cannot be done at home. Professional make-up effects artists deserve every penny they make.
"Fried Chicken-skin Face Man" is apparently a reachable D.I.Y. goal, however.
Good Ol' Chum
Sep 6th, 2011, 10:27 PM
In order for the kit to work as intended, you where supposed to remove all you air. Commitment, Rog, commitment.
Good Ol' Chum
Sep 6th, 2011, 10:33 PM
Oh yeah, first get in a vacuum chamber, and remove all the AIR, Then your HAIR. lol. Preferably in Space, so your skin gets that natural tone and texture as Freddy's.
Member
Sep 7th, 2011, 04:43 AM
Believe it or not, New Line did liscense a GOOD Freddy makeup kit back in the day. it was expensive though, like 30-40 bucks. I used it when I was in 4th grade, and it was awesome! I wish I still had the pics!

It was a foam latex piece and it covered the full face. (It was by the same company that did those awesome foam latext reaper, witch, and devil makeup kits back in the day.) Even came with a (shitty) fedora! The sculpt was based on the actual makeup from nightmare 4, so it looked pretty darn authentic and the kit came with a full 10 color makeup kit, so you could actually blend it like it looked in the film (IF you had the skill and patience to do so.)

For some odd reason though they only sold it for about two seasons and then I never saw it again.

It's pretty sad because to this day it's the best freddy makeup kit I've ever seen aside from these new-fangled 500+ dollar slip-on masks.
The Glum Cunt
Sep 7th, 2011, 06:36 AM
In one of those pictures you looked like the guy from saw ate a spaghetti plate without using his hands.
Forum Virgin
Sep 7th, 2011, 07:21 PM
A friend of mine used a similar kit once, it looked like Darkness from Legend. We stuffed the too-big nose and floppy horns with cotton balls and toilet paper to give them better shape, and the result was pretty good- until he realized he was allergic to the glue, haha! This kit is pretty ghetto, though, it should have included a chin piece and some of that gloppy latex stuff to deform the non-masked parts, at least.
Forum Virgin
Sep 10th, 2011, 12:40 AM
Ive always wanted that kit too. I bought a freddy mask off ebay a few beers back, and i got this shitty mask and black derby
Im one good looking Troll
Sep 18th, 2011, 02:15 PM
@ TacoBot what did you say about my uncle?
Recovering Lycanthrope
Nov 20th, 2011, 03:56 AM
I loved getting different makeup kits when I was a kid - especially the Imagineering stuff.

Click here to return to the Features homepage