Packaging - ***1/2
The photo art on the modern horror boxes is great, and most amazing of all is that it's from the figures, not the film.  They do a great job with mood setting graphics, and decent text.  My only complaint with this box is that the included stand is bubble sealed against the insert, making it not quite collector friendly perfection.

Sculpting - ***1/2
The majority of the sculpting here is in the head sculpt.  And I have to say that I'm quite impressed with this figure.  The face looks very close to the source material, or at least as close as you can tell from the dark, quick cut scenes.  The work around the eyes and mouth was critical to giving the impression of a second skin over the face, and they pulled it off well for a single sculpted piece.

The sculpting on the hands is pretty standard for Sideshow, and they hold the nicely sculpted accessories just fine.

My only issue with the sculpt that pulls it down slightly is the mouth expression.  Remember, I said it is very close to the movie, not exact.  It may simply be seeing this in reality rather than on the big screen, but the outer mouth seems to be in too much of a wide grin.  It's quite possible that I'm just forgetting it, but I don't remember the character's mask having quite this wide of a mouth opening, or at least not in quite this expression.

A final area that did work quite well is the rooted hair.  It has just the right wild look, and actually looks better to me than the prototype did.

Paint - ***
The cleanliness and general quality of the paint application is very good, but there were a couple issues for me.

The best work here is around the mouth, eyes and stitches, where there's lots of detail and they captured the realism quite nicely.

The two areas that aren't quite as good is the skin tone of the mask, and the blood splatters.  No one seems to do blood quite as well as McToys, and it may also be the large scale of the figures - even the blood on McToys 12" and 18" figures doesn't look as good as the smaller figures.  The splatters work alright, but aren't exceptionally realistic.

The skin tone on the face also is a little off.  Compare the final product with the photo on the front of the box.  The version on the box looks more like dying skin, while the final product has a little too much wash.  Again, it's not terrible, but it does detract a little from the overall appearance.

Articulation - ***
This figure has all the ultra-cool Sideshow articulation - neck, ball jointed shoulders and hips, double jointed elbows and knees, cut biceps, cut forearms, cut thighs, ankles, and the special Sideshow wrists.  He can certainly hold as many poses as the actual actor ever could, and probably wouldn't be stupid enough to try to jump a barbwire fence with running chainsaw.

I did have a tough time with the ankles though.  Mine are quite loose, and that means that other than a standard standing pose, he has a hard time maintaining a pose for too long.  He may be a figure you find yourself using the included stand with.

Accessories - ***
There are two main accessories, plus the stand.  There's the required chainsaw, and the hammer he used in the film.

Both accessories look great, especially the chainsaw.  The blood splatters here work a little better than the did on the figure itself, and he can hold either quite nicely.

The handle on the chainsaw did break pretty quickly though, and at this price point, two accessories is a little light.

The stand looks good, and has the TCM logo on the base.  If you end up with weak ankles, you might find the need to use the stand, and it does work well.

Outfit - ***
The outfit is pretty basic, but works fine.  There's the shirt, tie, pants and butcher's apron.  All have blood splatters to some degree, and the tailoring and fit are excellent.  They've padded the front of the standard Sideshow body to give him some heft, but the arms look skinny when compared to the fatter body.  That's a flaw with the short sleeved shirt, but they were constrained somewhat by the most commonly recognized outfit.

Value - **1/2
I'm grading this at the standard Sideshow $40 price.  Get it down around $35 and that's a little better, and $30 and under and you can add another half star.  But forty is a fairly high price point, and while it is a licensed figure, it still is about $5 or so higher than I'd like.

Overall - ***
Of the four figures released so far, Leatherface falls somewhere in the middle of the pack.  He's not my favorite - that would be Freddy - nor is he my least favorite.  That would be poor Michael Myers, whose review is yet to come.  If you're a big fan of the original film, you'll want to pick this up though, and the set of figures really do look great together.  Add in the new versions of Freddy and Jason, and this will be a great display set.

Where to Buy - 
The Sideshow site is already sold out of these. On-line options include:

- Aisle Sniper has Leatherface available right now for $35.

- Killer Toys has the Leatherface for $35 as well.

- Okay, so Red Planet Toys doesn't carry this particular figure, but if you're a sixth scale collector, you should check them out for Dragon, bbi and other stuff.