Scare the Pooh Out of You

by Cory Frolik

"Once soft and cuddly, now dead and bloody." This is the motto that guides Joe DiDomenico and Phil Nannay, the masterminds (cue maniacal laughter) behind South Philadelphia's Applehead Factory. The company makes a line of novelty teddy bears called Teddy Scares. Available for a little over a year, Teddy Scares substitute horror for kitsch: Instead of button noses and accessories of unconditional love, these bears sport stitched lips, fiendish attire and playthings from the Lizzie Borden collection.

DiDomenico explains that it's only appropriate that the forgotten emblems of our childhood would come back, in gruesome disfiguration, to exact revenge for their neglect. "I feel a teddy bear stays in your psyche," says DiDomenico. "To me, [horror and teddy bears] always seemed like a natural blend."

The collection, available at Quaker Head collectibles, Blue Line Collectibles and other comic book and special interest stores, offers five furry perversions, each retailed at $24.99. There is the zombie bear (Hester Golem), who has whole chunks of face missing, T2-style, and a stomach containing plastic cockroaches; and the punk-rock chick (Rita Mortis), whose tattoo and bloodied baseball bat suggest she just pummeled Teddy Ruxpin within an inch of his life to the beat of a Distillers album. There's a cyclops (Abnormal Cyrus) and a heartbroken poet (Edwin Morose), too, but the star is the serial killer (Redmond Gore) whose potato-sack headdress is lifted directly from Jason Vorhees.

Those who've already snatched up all five can go to www.teddyscares.com for a club membership that includes an otherwise unavailable limited edition of Morose. Or they can wait six weeks for the premiere of the new Teddy Scares series. DiDomenico's keeping quiet on what to expect from the line. (Security blankies made from cobweb? OK, probably not.) Whatever the case, these will be the sort of teddy bears who'll have their picnic — on your grave.