DRACULA

 While i meet McFarlane Toys at first with the Spawn figures and i loved Spawn when i was a kid, i wasnt very involved with the line too much. I actually have an alarming lack of Spawn toys on my possesion. My interest on the brand tough came with its line tittled McFarlane Monsters, the classic Universal Monsters action figures redesigned by the father of Spawn.

The twist tough, was that instead of average action figures, McFarlane designed playsets for each Monster. As a kid i was in heaven with this idea since it give me more to play with and while the figures were not that big, the scenarios compensated the size.

The figures are smaller than anything McFarlane did back then, they are the size of a Funko Pop actually and the very first was of course Dracula. The father of Spawn have a pretty unique take on designs since he tends to land too much on the overly grotesque and deformed, wich i think it suits Dracula nicelly since he designed the count with long hair and a hunched figure, pale skin and long fingers, pretty non-human and yet pretty elegant dressed in black with a scarf and a red cape.

The cape is made with thin cloth soo it helps give the figure a pretty nice look and since is attached to the wrists, it dosnt get in the way of the articulation. And he is articulated on the neck, shoulders and wrists only soo theres not a bunch of playability with Dracula himself tough he can stand on his own perfectly and the red scarf on his neck can be removed.

As the main piece of the set he is really nicelly sculpted with the wrinkles of his suit accentuating gravity and how thin is the count under the suit and since he is cast on black plastic, the paint is mostly for his hands cape and some other details (like the blood drops on his shirt) and looks really nice fot such a tiny scale.

The secondary figure of the set is the count on his vampire form. A pretty grotesque vampire bat creature that looks more like a tiny demon than anything, his wings are actually extremelly thin for a fliying creature and his entire body is mostly bones with skin. He is completelly black with some blue paint to high light his weak mosculature and white paint on his long nail fangs and red eyes. He is articulated on the neck and like his humanoid version, have ball joints on his shoulders.

The background consist on a cementery grating with a mausoleum at one side and Dracula´s coffin at the other. The sculpt is good and while its mustly cast on grey plastic, the cracks and other elements are painted accordinglly to not leave any element out; dirt, different textured bricks, a black rat on the wall.....also the black grating have cotton on top to emulate fog crossing the cementery. A pretty cute and cheap effect, dependeing of how you look at it.

The mausoleum have a golden plaque that reads "Vlad Dracula The Impaler" and a design of skulls and bat wings on the top as well as a revolving doors system to transform Dracula from bat to humanoid: hang the vampire thingy from his tail in front of the plaque, the door turns and reveals humanoid Dracula at the other side.

This is a nice little action feature but dosnt works at all since both Dracula and the vampire thingy are too big and get stuck at both sides.

The coffin have a wood texture and paint with a golden design on front with a demonic face or spirit of some sort and can be removed from the base with no problem. Lids open and this time Dracula can actually fit inside perfectly even with the lid closed.

There is also an axe that goes in the background and can be removed from the base. I have no idea of the propuse of this accesory since Dracula cant hold it, and there is also a big wooden stake that fit perfectly on the obnoxious big hole on Dracula´s chest to make him rest in peace forever.

I have to admit is extremelly cartoony, Dracula is a little bit over the top and the vampire version reminds me a lot Frigth Night vampire creature, but overall with the cementery, the coffin and the cute fake fog, the display is pretty classic, looks like a pretty traditional vision of a vampire perfect for any halloween decoration.

And as a kid i actually didnt had any problem with McFarlane vision of Dracula, i loved this set despite its defective action feature, tough the next set wasnt that exciting for me since it was Frankenstein and sported an smaller set up, soo its one of the missing pieces from my collection.