WEREWOLF

Back in the day, at the begining of this century, McFarlane Toys was at the peek of its art and after created such a fantastic toy line as Tortured Souls, they decided to go to theyr roots and explore the Universal Monsters. The result was a toy line full of fun characters and some other dissapointing but i dont really remember why i didnt get it back in the day.

Just a couple of years ago i was able to get Dracula, Frankenstein monster and the Mummy and it wasnt until now that i decided to give close to this series with the missing characters.

I wasnt thrilled with the Werewolf back then but having him missing in the display was pretty awkard since he is one of my favorite monsters. But the presence of this character is as awkard and puzzling as his absence actually…

From a technical stand point, this figure is just amazing. I am in awe McFarlane managed to produce such big quality in a mass masket toy since this beast is pretty bulky and heavy - hes not the talest monster but he takes a lot of space - and his details are soo amazing. The texture on the jeans is pretty realistic and the texture (almost like a pencil drawing) and his muscles and skin is stuning.

The paint follows the same tones of the other characters, with a greyish skin tone and lots of gory reds to accentuate. The blood splattered around is an extra since this is the bloody version but this time, the blood fits really well.

This thing can stand on its own perfectly and is articulated on the shoulders, legs, a wrtist and his head, togh the only usefull articulation is the head since thanks to the pre-posed sculpt the movement on his arms are useless and dosnt looks good.

Now, from an esthetic poitn of view, this is trully a mess. I never tough i could call a figure using that word - mess - but this really is the incarnation of all the excess and bad taste McFarlane had back then: lots of gore, torture porn, lots of chains and weapons with a ridiculous size.

This is a werewolf at the middle of his transformation, something never before done. Thats really unique and a gruesome concept, but is soo hard to find out wath is going on…this is soo busy and soo….irregular.

This wolf have no hair yet, just human skin and miss shaped legs turning into….this are not paws…i dont know, his two feet are transforming into something different and his arms, as well, are not matching either. One of his arms is turning into a bestial claw, the other has been destroyed and a furry paw is coming from inside it. The “skin” hanging from this legs is soo gruesome and the fur of the leg looks and feel really beautyfull.

There is wolfs forming under his skin and his spine is twisted in an extremelly painfull way and almost outside his body. There is a wolf head coming out from his back, a trully amazing view of horror and brillance.

The jaw of this man has broken and from his troath he is vomiting his entrails and organs as well as the main head of the wolf, the beast. This design is trully horrific and nightmarish, speciall mention goes to how this wolf has no skin at all, is only tissue and raw meat - almost like he has been burn - and his expresion is beastly, savage and full of fury.

The eyes and really frightning.

He have real metalic chains on his leg and arm and i can understand it, but he also has this… hooks piercing his flesh and blakc cords connecting them. His more human arm is full with this hooks as well that looks like some kind of torture (there is even flesh hanging from them).

He also have this… shoulder pad(?) with some articulated blades and a giant blade like scythe that makes him the tallest of the monsters. As much as i try to make sence of this i really cant, this mechanical thing have a really intrincate design but it clash with the concept of the beast in a pretty strong way.

He also have this kind of transluscent membrane mask covering his face with only one eye uncovered. This mask is really gross and grotesque but i cant understand the logic behind it and it covers wath is probablly the best element in its design: the canin head.

This beats have soo many amazing “wolf” elements on him, like the furry leg and the head on his back, but theres soo many alien elements covering him as well is not easy to associate him with a wolf ( or find his true shape too). His silhouette is terrible and looks more like a spider than a wolf (thanks to his spine and the blades) and when i lay eyes on him i think on many things: a genetic experiment, a mutation from the TMNT, the monster from John Carpenter´s The Thing, but it take me a long time to find the wolf nature on him.

This is one of those examples of “less is more”. With less wacky and ridiculous elements, this wolf would have looked stuning and dynamic but the extreme gore and obsesion of McFarlane with mechanic elements turned this werewolf into a totally different creature.

I may not like his design at all, but honestly, hes is a terrific horror figure: grotesque, gory, bloody, feral and haunting.