BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

 

I like weird woman. I admit it, it seems i always like the weirdest ones: Demona, Lexia Ashford, Eve, Martian Spy Girl and since i was a little kid, i felt an odd fascination for The Bride of Frankenstein. Her visuals are soo simple yet the long white dress and bandages look soo sublime together, her intense beauty and beehive hair with electric strokes at the sides looks soo magestic, and that looks has been used soo much for almost 100 years on media all around that i can help but asociate her with the most basic and pure form of femenine horror.

Of course, being the first and only female Universal Monster makes her more cooler and her short stay on screen and complet silence makes here an absolute mistery as well, soo each time a company makes figures of the Universal Monsters, i am always looking forward for the Bride and at last, NECA just released her Ultimate action figure and they were pretty brave with her.

The Bride is the shortest figure soo far and only with her hair she reaches Dracula and the rest of the Monsters heigh, except her mate, the Monster is much more taller than her and i love NECA for keeping scale soo good between characters. She can stand on her own tough she sometimes trips with her dress or lose balance since the section of the back is a little heavy, but she is much more easyer to stand then the Phantom of the Opera.

She is articulated on the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, legs, knes and wrists and like usuall, all this are ball joints soo theres a huge range of movement in here. Her dress made with real fabric dont block any of her movement either but the shoulder pads stop her shoulder movement a little bit but theres nothing to worry since she is not an specially dynamic character to beging with.

Soo far Jada, Mezco and Sideshows has only sculpted a "generic" woman to portrai the Bride, the action figure of Sideshows tried to mimic a little bit of the Bride face but never stay too close to Elsa Lanchester excentric and unforgetable features. But finally NECA actually sculpted Lanchester in here with the big eyes, small nose, sensual and puty lips and delicate face shape. The faery looking face is crowned with the great beehive hair with every strand sharply sculpted in waves.

The texture of the skin is clean tough she have an sculpted scar around her chin and on her neck (her face dont belong to her...). Aside of her delicate neck, the rest of her body is covered in bandages and while the sculpt is good, theres no more details aside of that. Her body shape is curvy but not sexualyzed, is very realistc shaped and her chest is small and tigth in bandages.

The paint in the bandages is kind of metalic white, very different to those of the Mummy, but the color is complete and have no more details. Her skin is pale and cast on that soft ckin color plastic tough it also have soem purple shadows around her eyes and and some beauty make up on her check bones. Her green eyes looks good but i wish they gives her bigger eye lashes for a prettyer look but my favorite part is the lips, painted on metalic purple and giving a small glimpse of her teeth in a very delicate way.

And is in here that NECA felt really brave because while Elsa Lanchester had red hair, the Bride has been always seen with black hair amd Universal has never opposed to it for 90 years, but this time NECA decided to gives us the look Elsa Lanchester show only to the staff of the movie: red hair.

The different tones of red and brown looks really good and gives the character a totally different feel. More colorfull for sure...better than the black hair? I dont know since the black and white motive we had for 90 years is not bad either, but this red tone isnt either and is growing on me.

Her dress is really fantastic, made with real fabric in the same material as Dracula´s cape, the dress is pretty fresh, ligth, soft, high quality and have a great flow, specially at this sall scale. Again, while Jada, Diamond and even Sideshow only gives her a tube like white hown, NECA actually tailored the dress as its supposed to be: long and square at the front with a fold at the sides around the arms and a very long, looong long back section with  around shape, a hospital gown in front and a bridal dress in the back.

The back side also have a very delicate tie that cross and close the dress, tough its not necesary to open this part to remove the dress, just remove the head, and move her arms up and the dress can be rmeoved pretty quickly. Tough this is the most delicate part since being of such a thin material and completelly white, i am afraid to damage or stain the dress.

On the accesorys department she is very low tough, but after a lot of consideration i dont know wath kind of accesory they could give her since she literally dont touch anything on the movie except the hands of her creator and her mate. Even Sideshow gives her her heart and the equipment to keep it beating, but even theyr figure could not interact with this items, soo NECA did theyr best in here.

First theres an extra pair of open hands, for her mate to touch and theres a pair of extra bandages as well, made with soft plastic, that can be wrapped around her arms at the owner discretion. Why make this bandages modular is beyond me, sicne they are actual part of the Bride look on the movie but i guess it was easyer this way that make articulated bandages.

Then theres two extra heads tough calling them heads is no accurate since they also include the neck to the collar bone. Remove this whole section is easy tough extra care shoudl be put while replacing the neck section to not pinch the dress.

One of the extra parts have the Bride screaming. Paint and sculpt are perfect, just like in the basic head. The teeth and wet tongue looks really really good in such small size and looks more accurate than the Jada´s version.

The second head part have the Bride covered in bandages, with only her eyes revealed in the moment the doctor Frankenstein screams his iconic " It´s alive! Alive!". The sculpt of the bandages have a nice texture and the surprised eyes under them are really striking. The bandages mix perfectly with the collar bone where this piece conects with the main body.

Lasly, theres a bandage covering for her eyes with hair clips holding the bandages, moments before the Brides comes to life. This small piece fits perfectly and is mostly designed for those who got Frankenstein Monster accesory pack that includes the table.

And thats it, nothing more, not many display options for the Bride, unlike the expresive Erik, but that dosnt mean she is less fun to play or to look at. She stand out soo much against the rest of the black and grey dressed Monsters and looks amazing interacting with her mate in the most cruel of displays of rejection.

Just one single character before completing the Ultimate Universal Monsters, one of the bests erires NECA has produced, but even as a stand alone, the Bride is just a beautifull piece to be displayed as the titular character of one of the corner stones of science fiction and horror and the central piece of the most perfect and hypnotic scene in the history of cinema.