So here’s my take, from a guy who grew up in the early 80s: TOTS masks are light years ahead of any mass produced “Myers” mask that was available throughout the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, save for the early runs of Don Post the Mask in the mid 80’s. Even then, those early Don Post masks had horrendous hair, horrible eye cuts, and no detail at all.
Then of course you move on to the likes of Illusive Concepts “blue lips”, along with other strange god awful renditions of what was supposed to be Myers masks that carried on through the 00’s. Not to mention these masks were either extremely small, beyond skin tight, or super massive giant things. If you think the sizes of TOTS are bad when it comes to big or small, they are nothing compared to the size differences in those things. If all you had was 60 dollars and wanted a Myers mask in those days, then that was your options.
Anyway, moving on to when TOTS came on the scene, it was like a dream come true as it pertains to masks that actually look the part and are mass produced. What they have delivered thus far on the mass produced market is a huge difference to what was once available in Halloween stores each year.
Now when you walk into a Halloween store these days, you see masks that actually look like Michael Myers and not some abomination of garbage. Sure, the hair may not be the best, but it’s worlds better than the hair that was on those things of the past. The hair on those things would come out in huge clumps with such ease, that the mask could go bald by the end of the night, or just by hanging in the store. It was awful. So they changed the game in that regard. Those who are nit picking them and complaining, really have no idea at all how good you have it compared to years past.
Now, with that said, it’s not all sunshine and roses. There have been times where they make odd choices for masks and the hair for them, such as the Elrod or Hospital masks, which had that synthetic rug hair. That has been rectified with the remakes of those, The Boogeyman and the Poster Mask. Now is the new hair great? No, but it’s way more accurate and manageable than what it was before.
Then there is the case of stock photos not looking like the actual mask. Here’s the thing with that: They do in fact look like the masks they ship out, but the difference is that they use lighting to highlight the masks in certain ways to make them look the best they can for the stock photo. I have taken all of my TOTS Myers masks, shot them with proper lighting techniques and have achieved the same looks as the stock photos. In fact I may do it again just to show that it is exactly what they are doing when creating a stock photo.
However, recently they have relaxed the stock photos of their recent lineups to better reflect the actual masks, so that’s an improvement. Even so, if you had a business wouldn’t you want to represent your product as best as possible? When’s the last time you went to McDonald’s or Burger King and had a burger that looks as perfect and wonderful as their commercials or stock photos? I’m guessing few and far between.
Now with all of that out of the way, here is my one and only gripe: While the paint work isn’t the end of the world, it still isn’t great. I mean, it’s Myers, it’s not like some massively detailed piece like a wolf or devil or anything like that which requires a wide range of colors and shades. So why is it that most all of their other masks that ARE NOT Myers, seem to be quite detailed and look really good?
I mean it’s just a fact, most of their other offerings that are NOT the “Halloween” franchise, look really good a detailed, and feel like real bang for the buck at 60 dollars, sometimes even less at 40 and 50 dollars. If even half of the effort that went into those other masks went into the Myers masks, there would be no question that they would be hard to beat at 60 dollars.
Anyway, I still say that they are worlds better than what we all had available to us in the last few decades, and that those who are getting bent out of shape over them when they are a mass produced 60 dollar mask, really have no idea just how good you have it. I own several Indy masks and some are the higher caliber stuff like the 75k Castle, but I also own TOTS masks. At the end of the day I like them all for what they are, and feel I get what I pay for on all fronts.
So there you have it. It’s just my opinion on it, take it for what you will. Hopefully this insight from an older fan in this community will help open your minds a little bit.
I tend to get very in depth, so I apologise for that 
