WEREWOLF

 The werewolf horror genre is one of the worst ever....theres not many werewolf movies out there and even soo only a handfull of them are worth watching. I can count with the fingers of one hand the really good werewolf movies out there and thats really dissapointing but those very rare few good movies are soo damn good!!! And despite the years, they still hold as some of the best in the horror genere.

Thats why is not a surprise theres not much werewolf figures out there, while we have like 400 different Chuckys, Leatherface or Michael Mayers, theres not much in the toy department dedicated to werewolf movies aside of the Wolfman movie from Universal. It take theyr time but gladlly, NECA gives a first stemp and finally give is a Werewolf Ultimate figure from The Howling, one of those very rare brillant wolf movies.

This was one of my most hyped figures of last year and one that fits perfectly along the An Americna Werewolf in Lodon and the Dog Soldier wolfs (and i REALLY HOPE NECA do the Dog Soldier wolf someday too). In perfect scale with everything NECA does, this good boy is shoulders and a head taller than all other figures of the brand, just like a werewolf must be and theres no way he can stand on his own with such long legs and tiny feet soo he comes with a special base but i will take about that later.

This lycan is articulated on the head and neck base, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, legs, knees, half calf, ankles and ....feet? Or are the paws? Soo theres no way to complaing about articulations here since he is nude and nothing block them. Biceps rotate and elbows and shoulders have a very good range of movement while the neck is really long and have ball joints on both side; one conects with the body while other conects with the head and theres two different hair rings made of soft plastic that covers thins long neck section, soo the head have a huge range of movement to the sides, up and down (perfect to pose him howling to the moon).

Chest have a really good range of movement to the front and back while legs, somehow feel a little bit limited but i cant point exactly why. Knees bends very good, just the same as the kalf articulation and "ankles" while the feet can rotate. All this articulations are ratchet soo they are pretty sturdy and hard to bend but i am glad they are since this figure really does needs strong legs to survive....not like that McFarlane Manbat...

Sculpt is reaaaaaallly good, each strand of hair on his body follow the flow of his muculature structure on his back, arms and legs and the the way the hair flows and joint on the center of his chest and belly is just soo natural....like a real dog with long hair. Also the hair on his forearms and thigh hangs behind soo nicelly and his tiny tail is soo adorable. The small feet dont look human at all but dont looks like dog ar all and the hands have such amazing long and thin spidery fingers.

Theres a lot of hair hnaging from the sides of his face (this actually looks like....a long haired cat once in close look) and the size of the snout is perfect along side the tiny eyes and huge fox like ears that gives him a kind of demonic look since they looks like horns. Really the ears are giant but each part of the silhouette mathes perfectly that of the on screen animatornic and costume in the movie.

The tiny eyes are yellow and they have a mini small black pupil and i am surprised how perfectly are painted given the small size. The yellow fangs and red gums looks perfect along side the black lips and nise. The claws are yellow like the fangs and the hairless skin on the paws and hands are actually blue, pretty much everything else here is brown.

Like....a lot of brown and a toon of different browns. The color in the hair is very rich since it have an awful lot of darker and lighter browns perfectly combined in an extremelly natural way. I mean you dont see the different colors until you take a good look at them and i counted 6 different browns soo far along side the grey area in the chest. Everything mix soo perfect and each piece fits soo perfectly, this is one of the best pieces i ever seen on the history of NECA.

Accesorys theres not much but that is understandable. He comes with tree pairs of hands: one is completelly relaxed, one is claw shaped to attack and theres another one in the middle of this two. Sometimes is very hard to see the difference bewteen this hands but they are different and the paint job and sculpt is perfect on all of them and they swap very easy.

Then theres tree different heads: the standar head with the jaw closed (togh his lips are open to show his fangs), another ehad with the moith fully open and a third one with articulated jaw. While the sculpt and paint on the inside of the mouth of the open jaw head is fantastic, the articulated jaw head pretty much negates the other two. Really, why produce two heads with different face expression and a third head with both expression at the same time?

I am guessing this was done only to justufy the price because, aside of this theres nothing more to give to this Werewolf an accesory. Maybe bloody extra limbs?? But wathever the reason, i guess is better to have more heads than missing them. Plus this articulated jaw head dripping blood and looks soo damn good!! This is deffinetly the only head i need for display tough all of them can be swaped very easy.

And lastly is the base. Now theres no way this character cna stand with those werid shaped and small feet soo i am very happy NECA added a base, and not any base....this is a base that actually does work!!! The base consist on a circular transluscent plastic piece with a rod on the center and a clamp in the end. The clamp holds onto the Werewolf hip piece in the base and between his legs .... it holds him from the balls, literally.

I never seen a base like this from NECA before but it works and keeps the Werewolf standing no matter the legs position. But this feels so damn delicate....i mean, one mist be carefull soo the legs are posed to reach the ground soo the rod dont need to hold the entire weigth of the figure, but i am afraid to broke the rod or the clamp that holds the balls soo the addition or emoval of the base must be handle with extreme care and is really tricky and even with that i am not sure how much time this base will hold.

Soo this figure cant stand but thats to be expected thanks to his design and i am happy NECA made a working base just for him i just hope is not that delicate as it looks....aside of that, this figure is complete perfection, even with the lack of accesorys, articulation, sculpt and paint is just spectacular from every angle and makes me wish they give us a Dog Soldier wolf as well someday.

I think is not necesary to say how good this looks on display on any horro collection and how necesary it was for me to get this beautifull beast in my hands.

MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

Last year it was the 100th anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera, the oldest (or one of the oldest if you count Quasimodo) member of the Universal Monster characters. Not only this movie was one of the best and more impresive of the silent era but is one of the most ambitious monster movies and this particular first version is also the closest we get to the original novel, since Gaston Leroux, the writer, was directly involved in the production and made sure everything was faithfull to his book. Like that isnt enough, the Phantom of the Opera is also one of the very first movies in color....long before sound was even added to movie.

Its just a small scene of a few minutes but 100 years ago, see the moving images in color was trully magic and wasnt an easy feat to acomplish since each celuloid frame had to be hand painted to achive this. This particular scene shows the Phantom arriving to the Bal Masque dressed as Edgar Allan Poe´s characters, the Masque of the Read Death. The color and the Phantom disguise complemented each other perfectly to show one of the most glorious scenes of the whole movie.

Sideshow did justice to such scene 26 years ago releasing the Phantom dressed in red as part of the Universal Monster action figure series as well as a 1/6 scale version with real clothes. That figure is one of my favorites on my collection and they did a magnifiscent job on it but now is NECA´s time to do theyr own version.

In scale with the rest of the line, this version of the Phantom is articulated on the head, neck, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles. Sadly articulations suffer a little bit here thanks to the character design: the ruffle around the neck blocks a lot of the up and down movement of the head and the puffy nature of the sleves make his arms really thick soo the elbows dont bend too much and also the end section of the sleves block the wrists movement despite being made with soft plastic.

The end section of the shirt is long and, again, despite made with soft plastic it blocks the legs movement quiet a bit but aside of thath everything else moves pretty well, shoulders, knees, ankles and this is not a character that is supposed to be extreme posed.The bad thing is that he almost cant stand on his own....i dont understand why but i think his feet are too small and the heels dosnt help, but make hi stand is quiet a feat and once found the sweet spot for him to balance i dont want to move his legs anymore (soo i am sorry if the poses are a little stiff in this photos).

Scult is really good, the skull mask looks perfect with the big jaw and tiny small eye holes and the Phantom nose poking out from the skull nose, it looks weirdlly....grotesque. I am happy they added the red bandana on his head because it seems the Sideshow version forgot this. The bandana is made with soft plastic and it actually helps to keep the cape in place. The outfit is very simple tough but the wrinkles around his torso are realostic enough and the pouch hanging from the belt in front is a good detail tough it blocks the leg articulation a little bit.

The pants are very simple and have a really good leather texture and the most complex part are the sleves with the underfabric coming out from the holes of the outher layer. Things is....we dont really have a clear view of this outfit in the movie since he is covered with a cape, soo this outfit looks very different to Sideshow one, specially in tle legs part and i am not sure wich one is supposed to be more faithfull to the movies costume.

Having a character completelly red is very difficult since the color pretty much blocks any other color and is hard to match the tones. Here the color tones are very good because the shirt and pants have a dark red on it mixed with a black wash that makes te wrinkles and texture pop up while the shoes have a much darker red on it (and makes them looks like a different material) while the inside layer of the sleves have a brigth red as wella s the puch and that makes them pop up too but not dominate the eye. Theres small black perls on the belt, the puch and in different sections of the sleves and neck part that dont stand out too much but helps leveling up the whole red palette.

The neck ruggle is completelly white and stand out too much while the skill mask have different and very soft tones of grey to highñight the details like the teeth and the eyes tough this section feels very relaxing to the eye. The hands are neck are the only skin we can seen and the paint is really good, with a very relistic pale and sickly paint job.

Then there is the cape. The cape is HUGE and made with a very soft and thin fabric that shines a lot like velvet but at the same time is cmpletelly transluscent as well. The neck part is made with soft plastic as wella s the rope on the front, tough put the cape is very tricky thanks to the collar ruffle . The cape also includes a set of small black shiny pearls all around the edge to catch the ligth and shine even more than the red. This outfit is like....a cristal ball in a disco.

The front side of the cape is wired soo it can be posed around but given how long it is, its pretty heavy and the wired have problems keeping the pose and here is the thing, in the movie the Phantom is not using a cape.....is using a kind of greek toga that wraps around his shoulder and around his arm and the other ends wraps around his waist...its pretty difficult to see it on the movie with preccision, but theres no rope in the front and deffinetly no section conects with the neck area.

I dont know why NECA chose a siple cape for this figure given is pretty clear is not...i mean, Sideshow did it rigth 26 years ago, maybe NECA was too lazy to handle too unnecesary tailoring? I dont see anyone complaining about it tough the cape is extremelly well tailored, soft and have the perfect weigth for some dramatic display and thanks to the wire it can be wraped around the Phantom and makes it looks almost exactly like in the movie soo i guess everything is good here...

To cmplement his outfit we have his hat, a big black hat made with soft plastic with a thick red and hairy feather in one side. While Sideshow used real feathers, this one is all plastic and while it dosnt looks bad it looks...we.., plastic. The hat fits perfectly on the Phantoms head and the feather also helps to keep the cape in palce and its painted in brigth red with sparkles.

The otehr basic accesory here is the cane with the snake biting the skull. The sculpt of the snake is really good as well as the skull and while is very simplistic it very elegant as well and have a wicked tone for the Phantoms outfit. The cane is completelly blakc while the snake is painted in silver and the skull is white and is quiet tricky to fit it on the Phantom hand given the shape of the snake.

This are the basic add ons needed to the Red Death outfit but aside of that theres 3 and a half pairs of hands: and open hands set, a pair to hold the cane, a pair doing gestures and another hand open that i cant see too much difference with the basic open hands. The gesture hands are the most helpfull for a dramatic display since you can pose thePhantom poitign his finger or calling someone with two fingers. Swap the hands is not as easy as it should thans to the end section of the sleves but is nothing to worry about.

And finally, aside of the head with the skull mask theres two extra heads with no mask. This heads are included in the first version of the figure soo theres nothing new here and they show the Phantom looking at his rigth side with a look on his face full of doubts and caution and the second ehad shows him in a mad scream. Both have a fantastic sculpt and paint job, an extremelly natural around his eyes and yellow teeth with black lips but the screaming head is my favorite by far, is trully scary and disturbing but sadly, the outift ruffle on the nekc prevent the heads to sit nicelly on the ball joint soo, unlike the masked head, they fall pretty easy.

Theres nothing mere here but theres no need for more, the Phantom dont use any sort of item in this scene aside of his cane and the outfit is already complex enough to justify the price. And while the cape is not fathfull to the on screen version is very high quality and perfectly tailored.

With this figure i am closing my Universal Monster NECA collection since theres no other character i want, the display is complete. I wish this figure can stand much better but i guess a base can fix that as anoying as it is and the cape, while not 100% acurate it can be shaped to macth the on screen version. And with this color palette this version of the Phantom stand out way too much along side the other grey, black and white Monsters and i guess thats wath he wanted.

NOSFERATU

 I never buy the same figure twice with the only exception of the same character having multiple version of itself, different outfit or amour, basically a new sculpt. When they are color variants i think about it...the color variant must be really special for me to get it but i deffinety neve buy a figure twice just because it have different accesorys. That was a rule i respected until now...

Also, collecting monsters from the black and white era is always tricky because, most of the time, they release them in color or black and white versions or even glow in the dark, but i usually go for the color version and only got the black and white version when i have no other choice. Is not like i dont like black and white, that grey scale color palette is really beautifull and suit the characters soo well, but i dont have enough space for a grey scale display.

I been tempting by the NECA Universl Monsters for a long time but in the end, i got the black and white Nosferatu because of a mix of "color variation" and "different accesorys" soo i could not resist. In scale with pretty much evertything NECA does, this Orlock can stand on his own perfectly and is articulated on the neck, chest, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles in a pretty usualy NECA way. The jacket is made if dot plastic but it restrict not only the chest and waist movement but also the legs a little bit but this is not a character that needs extreme freedom of movement. Count Orlock looks better in more stale poses.

I really review this figure time ago....maybe two year ago? I dont remember, but is basically the same sculpt. The wrinkles on the jacket are really really natural on the sleves as well as in the back, the pants have a nice soft texture and the long spidery limbs along side the hunchback match the character on screen perfectly as well as the face structure, long eyebrows and big eyes, this is one of the best sculpts based on Max Schreck rat like vampire.

The color here is the main atraction, or more likely the lack of color. The shoes and inside shirt are deep black while the pants are gunmetal black with a dark wash that works pretty good with the texture and the jacket have a lighter tone of grey, almost a little but bluish and the combination is pretty good for the eye.

The hands and face shine along side the deep grey outfit since Count Orlock skin is completelly white with soft grey airbrush on his checks, around his eyes and fingernails to give them volume and focus. The contrast is really good and he looks very ghostly. The eyes shine and the color aplication is really perfect as well as in the lips and little sections with hair.

Talking about accesorys, he comes with four pair of hands: one pair relaxed, one pair in closed fist, one pair with his claws out and a a pair of rigth hands to hold items. The sculpt and color is perfect and they are easy to swap tough its pretty odd to see some of the hands are designed to hold into items he dosnt have but i guess its a mather of mix with the colored version. My favorite hands are the claw ones for sure.

He also comes with three heads: one have a serious and pretty grave face expression while another have his eyes wide open and smiling in a pretty mischevious and evil way and finally, theres the ehad with his fangs out and eyes that with a blanck impresion. They are pretty easy to swap and each one of them have a perfect sculpt and grey scale painting. For me the best is the fangs out one, its the most disturbing.

Now here is where things got interesting, he dosnt comes with his letter or ink well and feather, no castle keys or tubeteika hat. Instead he comes with his black cloack, whip and Orlok´s outside hat. The whip is made of soft plastic soo it always flows pretty natural no matter how you puse him holding and while the sculpt of the base and end parts is good, the piece is completelly black.

The hat is also made with very soft plastic and fit into his head perfectly. I have no idea how is named this hat in specifit but it have the shape of a witch hat with a pointy end, tough given how he wears the tubeteika, this hat overall shape must be totally different to how he uses it. The balck of the hat is the same as his pants and it have a darker shiny ribbon in the base and a grey feather in top. The feather looks extremelly "Burtonesque", pretty classic design for a german expresionistic movie.

The cloack top part is made of woft plastic and is completelly black with a realistic sculpt of small wrinkles her and there while the rest of the cloack is made with real fabric. The black fabric is thick and black and it opens up in the front. It have a wire all around its perimeter, from the neck section the the bottom section and around it soo it can be posed flowing into the wind or can be folded in any way tough the material is quiet heavy.

Theres two holes at the side for Orlock´s hands to comes out and this holes are also wired. This cloack along side the feather hat and the whip can be seen on the scene where Hutter travels to the castle and Orlock arrives with his carriage to take him. The scene is really brief but i never seen a figure recreate this outfit before and thats the reason why i got this figure. The overall look with the cloack and hat is really ethereal and ghotsly, he looks like a phantom, specially with the way his white eyes contrast.

Sadly this is opening the door for me to buy more black and white variants and i dont want to but slowlly i am getting full of Nosferatu figures pretty fast and thats not a complaing, this is one of the version of the vampire most remembered and not even the mustache version can match this design.

THE VISITOR

 The begining of this cerntury was a big moment of experimentation and exploration in regard of many media outlets and even moreimprtantly, it was a moment of great creativity following the footseps of the 90s. In the toy and figures market we started to see characters and series we never expect to see in toy form or just original universes created from scratch. One of the studios following this thrend was Stan Winsont Studios, the people responsible of the FX of Predator, Alien, Small Soldiers and other movies but in 2000 they decided to enter the toy market.

They launch themselves with a multimedia project called Creature Features: a set of high quality Stan Winston standar figures that came with a CD-ROOM detailing all the creative proces of the figure itslef as well as share wallpapers and other stuff for the PC and, on TV, a movie based entirelly on each of the figures made by HBO. It was pretty ambitious deffinetly but sadly, the high prices of the figures and terrible distribution (and exclusivity to Toy R us) make them very difficult to come by and pretty fast they turned into expensive and rare collector items.

Last year tough i was able to get one of the last figures of the studio, from Blood Wolves, and one of theyr Exreme Gargoyles but also i was able to find two of the first Creature Features figures in mint condition, inside theyr blister package. I had my doubts about opening them but in the end i take the chance and while i wasnt very happy with the Evilution Demon, the second figure was much more interesting.

This is The Visitor, from the Day the Wolrd Ends movie. A creature from another world that is tied to a little boy with psychic powers. The boy own imagination and powers let the creature take shape in a small town to start the destrucion of minkand. Since the kid is a fan of 50s horror movies, The Visitor looks like an alien coming out from the Cold War era, with one eye, tentacles and a green palette to7gh in the movie, the creature is never fully seen.

This figure is in standar scale soo he fits with McFarlane or NECA or most modern figures but given the position he is in, he looks smaller than it looks. Also he cant stand on his own thanks to the shape of his feet, soo he needs to use the base he comes with.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, left bicep, legs and half calf. Yes, thats not much, specially considering this are all cut basic articulations soo he can rotate his head on his shoulders but cant look at the sides and arms only move up and down. Legs are even more limited but theres not much sense on moving the legs given the pre-posing. 

Tough, both arms are made with sift plastic ad are wired as well as the longer tentacles on his head, soo they cna be posed moving to any side and the arms can bend even if they dont have visible articulation. This is quiet a special detail since back then no figures used this kind of material mixed with normal hard plastic. 

Sculpt is really really good since the whole body have the texture of a plant and his muscular structure is not human at all, instead it seems his arms and legs are made of random tendrills or tentacles joining together. The fleshy texture on his back looks almost like a mummy with the bones protunfind and the center of his torso is covered in soft plastic insectoid like shrimp legs that gives him quiet a disgusting look.

The texture of the head tentacles is very different and the big mouth full of tiny fangs and one eye with no nose looks really fantastic. The face have a mix of purples and greens that makes a pretty hard to discenr color but the different shades around the wrinkles on the eyes and mouth makes it looks really natural. The pruple tongue, pink gums and whire brigth teeth looks really good, but the best aprt is the yellow eye. Is painted perfectly but also it contrast with the rest of the figure palette pretty nicelly.

The little legs in the torso looks purple with a black wash in the tip and the rest of the torso is red mixed with purples and it slowlly turns into green in the back. The back have a huge amounth of different greens, paley greens that mkes it looks sick, pruple that reminds a corpse and yellow in the blisters that surrounds his body randomly. Legs and arms also use a mix of much brigther greens that makes them looks like a plant and theres a wash of ligther colors mixed with browns and yellows.

This guy looks all green, like a plant, but ince you see him in details theres an amazing amounth of different colors here and all of them blends perfectly in a very natural way. I wish McFarlane´s Swamtp Thing had a color aplication like this.

The base is really spectacular. It have a very weird shape but it consist on the woods flor with a bunch of rocks and two big fallen trees. Each of this trees have a thick and big peg soo The Visitor can put a foot on each with one of his arms holding into the big "Y" shape branch of one of them in a very predatory way. The figures fits perfectly in between this trees tough assemble the trees is quiet tricky, once done they make for a very sturfy base.

The sculpt and paint job here are insane!!! The trees have an extremelly natural wood texture on them and the color helps a lot to enhance it mixing browns and greys and light brown in the areas where the tree is broken. Each one of the rocks on the flor have a different grey palette and the dirty on the flor looks just like....wet dirt!!! Aside of the darker brown and all the washes it have, its also covered in shiny transparent paint that makes it looks like a piece of damp forest.

There is also five different branches that have the same sculpt and paint job as the base. This branches fits in very specific place in between the rocks and trees but they can be placed anywhere on the base soo the display cna be customized a little bit and they help to make the forest floor more dangerous and much more natural.

Lastly, theres a CD-ROOM with videos of how the figure was made and info about the artists behind it, from the design in paper to the sculpt and paint. This was a great addition to those interested in go beyond the figure part and knows how this figure are build from scratch. Of course i am leaving the CD packed with the blister.

This Visitor is quiet the opposite to the Evilution Demon, while the Demon had a design that made it looks like a bunch of trash melting together, this guy here is very reminiscent of the 50s monster design and it also makes for a much more interesting and cleaner design. While the Evilution Demon color palette was dull, this one is vivid and vibrant and the base also matches the high quality of the figure. Actually, the base would be perfect for so many figures i cant count (like werewolf figures)!!!

I think this figure really encapsulates wath Stan Winston wanted to do with this line of toys and the high quality explain the high price too since, 25 years later i still find this guy quiet impresive. Sadly, its pretty evident not all figures on the line share this same quality  and i think that explains why they laster only for 3 years. I will try to get more of this figures but i am not sure if i will ever be able to complete this collection.