More Dracula!! Before the pandemic i would never expect to review this much Dracula or Universal Monster figures at once!!This classic monsters are being resurrected pretty stronly by both old and new toy brands since Jada Toys - a brand that only produced toy cars - debuted in the action figure field a year ago with the Universal Monsters and produced a pretty impresive line with lots of up and downs but made it pretty clear they had the skills to produce some really impresive products.
Tough the weakest figure of the line was, in fact, Dracula and incredible enough, a year later they decided to fix it and re-release Dracula once more but this time under the Lugosi State license, with a sculpt based in Bela Lugosi. I dont like this method to re-release a failed figure with a better version, specially if its just a variant and nothing more, but the presentation really made me imposible to get him.
I dont usually post pictures of the box of such small scale figure, but this time around i make an exception since the box itself is really impresive: black with the Dracula logo on it and the crest of the Lugosi State in front in high deffinition, with spider webs and bats hidden underneat. The sign of Bela Lugosi himself in red in the side and still of the movie in the other side, the box opens to reveal a scenario for the figure based on a dak alley in London with some posters of the paly of Dracula and in the side, the figure in a blister shaped as a coffin.
Pull the red string on the side to reveal a drawer that showcase the figure accesorys. Its incrediblly pretty, classy and gothic looking and thats amazing for such a low low LOW price. Also, before the Dracula movie came out, Bela Lugosi played the character in theatre play for many years, soo this figure seems aknowlege that part of Bela Lugosi career thanks to the background with the posters and that makes it soo unique.
The figure is in the scale of a Figma soo its really small and have the same heigh as the firts version of Dracula. He can stand on his own and have the same articulations as well: ball jointed neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, thigs, knes and ankles and can stand on his own perfectly. Actually the body is just the same as the first release....or almost the same since this is the Dracula in London and instead of the star necklace with the red ribbon on his neck, this Dracula have a chain.
The real change here is the head, this time not just a generic Hallowee Dracula but Bela Lugosi himself. Actually just by comparision this new head is not that different from the first one: the shape of his mouth and side of his face are different as well as his frown but those small details were enough to make him reach that Bela Lugosi look.
Of course, the sculpt is not as perfect as NECA´s Ultimate, but this figure is half the size and that makes face features much more difficult to sculpt and i think Jada Toy did a good job in here to catch Bela Lugosi expression and steel eyes. The paint is the same as the first version, pale skin with purple eye bags and blue eyes.
Another change here is the cape too. The cape of the first figure was terrible, pretty bad looking and here the tailoring is much more elegant. Since this is the London Dracula the cape have a white inside but also it have a wire all around it to make it flow to the wind. Also instead of using the horrible black srping around his body they used a trasluscent one that is almost imposible to see, upgrading the figure look a lot.
The cape is not perfect tough, since thanks to its two fabrics; white and black, the cape is really thick looking and the wire inside it dosnt help. Also its kind of short oo its imposible to wrap Dracula,s body on it. The cape is much better looking deffinetly, but still i think the wire is an unecesary element and i wish they make the cape longer.
His accesorys are an extra pair of hands to hold on his posters and an extra pair making the hypotic movements soo classic from Lugosi version of Dracula. Both hands can be changed prettye easy and works perfect but they also add an extra head with a fierce looking expression. I feel this sculpt miss a little big of the Lugosi spirit tough is not because of the sculpt but because of the small scale, tough i admit they didnt give him fangs unlike the first version.
He also comes with a big size poster, two mediom size posters and two small size posters all printed in parchment paper except the smallest one. Full of images of Lugosi as Dracula and text all over them, presenting "The screen´s master of horror" or "Mr. Horror himself" in "our stage", "RKO Capitol" or "In person in Vista Theatre", the visual richnes of this poster replicas express nicelly the stardoom of Bela Lugodi as well as the amazing world that was the theatre 100 years ago.
Overall, while this figure have some issues with paint of the cape, it was deffinetly an upgrade over the first version and dosnt feel too much as a Dracula figure, but much more as a tribute to Bela Lugosi himself and his career on theatre and thats make it stand out from other figures of the character. Also i cant complaing thanks to the low price and fantastic presentation, this is a figure that feels much more expensive than it really is and thats pretty rare rigth now.
