FRANKENSTEIN

 I was really dissapointed when Mezco included the Frankenstein Monster in they brand new ONE:12 Collective serires and cancelled the rest of the Monsters because of a "lack of interest from public", specially considering the last time the Monsters had an action figure serires was with the really mediocre and odd Diamond Select. It looked like the only good figure representation of the Universal Monsters was going to be the Sideshow figures.

But now, 20 years later, that changes thanks to NECA and theyr Reel Toys serires of figures based on movies, specifically the Universal Monsters in theyr 90th anniversary, with a celebration with Ultimate action figures and the very first release is again, the Frankenstein Monster.

There´s two version of this figure, one full color and the other one in Silver Screen Edition (black and white). For some strange reason the color version is much more rare to find and exclusive to WallMart (in the USA) soo this guy was a challengue to get and was quiet expensive but it was worth it.

The Monster is in standar action figure scale, a little bit bigger than your average human figures (like a Predator) and can stand on his own perfectly with those huge and heavy shoes. He is articulated on the head, neck, wrists, shoulders, elbows, wrist, legs, knes and ankles and every single articulation works marvellous. Is ironic how such stiff character have such movility in here but is true, all ball joints works perfect and not a single thing prevent or block his movement since his jacket is made with sift plastic.

The sculot is terrific, the wrinkles on his clothes hidding the articulations, the rugged texture on his jacket and pants and specually the portrait, there is an awfull lot of Boris Karloff in here, the little wrinkles around his lips, the sleepy look on his eyes, the bags under his eyes, his jaw line, this is one of the closest sculpt i ever seen of Karloff if not the best one, specially considering the scale.

The paint is amazing as well. He is fully dressed in black and of course each piece is cast on said color, but it also have some soft wash of greys to give it volume to the texture, some soft browns on the pants and boots that looks like dirt, looks pretty somber and dark considering all other toy companys always dress him in green.

But the most impresive part is the flesh. Again, instead of painting him neon green or lime green, like he is on the posters, NECA chose the color Jack Pierce (Universal make up artists) mentioned on an interview, aparently Pierce painted Karloff with "Palo Mortis".... the color of a few days coprse, a kind of grey/green tone with soft purple bruises.

And that odd color looks fantastic since the Monster really look like a decaying corpse, with his black fingernails and lips and the purple eye bags, along the skin texture, the result is something frightining realistic. Also, the fresh and weet blood on his scars and around the bolts on his neck gelps a lot to make this figure trully photorealistic.

As extras he comes with a pair of heads and two extra pair of hands. The hands with different gestures looks perfect and can be excahnged pretty easy as well as the heads. Now theres one head snarling and another roaring. The snarling one i tough looked like a silly smile at first, but in fact is a face expression Karloff used when attacking Elizabeth on the movie.

The roaring expression is of course, for when the monster gets violent and both heads have a terrific sculpt. the wrinkles on one half of his face, the small pointy teeth, each sculpted independently and painted perfectly, the tongue inside the mouth, NECA trully reached perfection with this figure with both sculpt and paint (and playability too).

His other accesorys are a pait of handcuffs with a real metalic chaing. The handcuffs cannot be open but instead can be inserted on his wrists by removing the hands. And also a set of flowers to represent the Monster´s innocense, when he kills little Maria by accident. This flowers are pretty basic looking and are the most colorfull item on the set, but fits perfectly between his fingers.

And thats it, theres not a whole lot of acccesorys in here for an Ultimate action figure, but them again, is not like the Monster interact with a lot of items in the movie either soo i dont blame NECA for this, specially considering how brillant is the rest of this figure: fantastic sculpt, amazing painr, great working articulations, he was expensive but i dont feel bad for paying for it.

And considering the box comes with the art of the original poster used to advertise the movie, i am tempted to say this figure....is actually....superior for that of Sideshow....maybe this is the best Frankenstein Monster we ever get soo fat in 90 years. With the rigth light, is pretty easy to mistake this figure for a living, breathing Karloff and thats not an easy task for a character like this.