THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

A cuple of years ago i read for the first time The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux and it became one of my favorite books pretty quickly thanks to the grandiose and dark mistery it holds and no movie or other version has managed to come close to it, except the 1925 version by Univeral. Of course this was the only movie that had Gaston Leroux directly involved soo is the closest to the book, but is also one of the most lavish and spectacular films of the silent era, and one of the most unerving and diturbing thanks to Lon Chaney and his unmatched performance.

The very first creature from the Universal Monster universe, NECA really did take its time to bring the Phantom into theyr Ultimate line but the wait was really really worth it. The Phantom is of curse, human size and the standar scale of the NECA figures tough he is much shorter than the Frankenstein Monster and the same heigth as Dracula. He....can stand on his own but not very well sadly, thanks to his high heel shoes (he is french after all), balance him with those shoes is kinda tricky, just like the Wolfman.

He is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knes and ankles, all of them ball joint soo theres a hug range of movement here since his coat is made of soft plastic, soo his legs can move with total freedom. This articulations are really welcome since Erik - the Phantom - is one of the most expressive Monsters.

The sculpt is just amazing. Every detail of Lon Chaney performance is here: the big bags under the eyes, the bony check bones, the skull nose, the big teeth protunding from the mouth, also the texture of old skin, the little wrinkles around his mouth and on his forehead, there is a very disturbing and odd realism in this figure that make some of his expressions trully frigthing and haunting.

The realism goes to his hands as well since they have the same texture and are made with soft plastic, and his body looks fantastic as well with the tuxed wraping around it very naturally. The shirt, vest and coat are separate peices tough they cant be removed, but that add a lot of realism and depht to the sculpt. His bow tie is also made with soft plastic.

The paint is very simple but effective: pure blackness here with pure white only on his shirt under the vest and on the sleeves, but theres different in his black clothing, that mixed with the texture make the tuxed shine on a very natural way. The buttons on the sleeves, shoes and other details are also painted in a darker more shiny black.

The skin have a mix of purple and grey tones that makes him looks like a corpse half rotting. I am not sure if its the paint or the plastic used on it, but the skin have this wird and pretty soft shine on it that catches ligth on a very specific way. The bags under his eyes have a much darker pueple that makes them looks like the sockets on a skull and his lips are even more purple, almost black and....wet and all this dark tones makes his protunding and yellow teeth stand out even more.

This really makes me apreciate Lon Chaney artcraft creating the make up of this characters, every single day with his own hands and with no CG or even advanced prostetics or make up effects, just the most basic of tools and colors he was able to create a vision of the grotesque that it gets much worse the more you look at it and maybe the wrst is that theres nothing supernatural in here, just human evilnes. No wonder after 93 years his version of the Phantom is still chilling.

He comes with two pairs of extra hands in the same soft material as the base hands: two for holding items and two with a pointing finger to recreate the popular scene of the Phantom unmasking. All the hands can be swaped pretty easy and adds a lot of diversity to this odd character.

Then theres 4 extra heads. Yes, 4....this is the most heads we ever got with an Universal Monster and of coruse, this is because i am sure NECA really strugled to chose wath expressions to use since this character, like i already said, is really really expresive. 

Aside of the basic blank expression there is a "surprised" face expression with his eyes wide open  and looking to his left and his mouth in a "O" shape. Looks very different to the blank base expression and is from a famous still from a scene in wich Christine is about to decide if she stays with him or not. Another face have the Phantom looking at the rigth and smiling. This is my favorite head of course given how evil and trully frigtning his smile looks, almost beastly, like an ape.

Then there is the open mouth and shouting face expression, from one of the most intense and electrifiying scenes in the history of cinema, when Christine unmask him to reveal his fury and and terror. The inside of the mouth and the big tongue inside looks wet and soo real!! 

And lastly, theres the head with the mark on. The mask have a pretty pink color, different to the Phantom skin color and some purple shadows around the eyes and looks basically empty, cold and dead, like a manikin. The lower half is made with transluscent soft plastic soo you can see  alittle bit of the Phantom rotten teeths and purple lips, wich makes it even worse.

To complement the looks theres a black hat, made with soft plastic that fits with every head perfectly, a pretty cool looking hat and there is also his cape...or i dont know how to call it. This peice of clothing always leaves me perplexed because it have gole son the sides soo hes arms comes out soo its like some kind of long vest?? I dunno,its very different to Dracula´s cape deffinetly.

Wath leave sme perplexed is the material....velvet...black velvet...i mean, i think this piece of clothing was velvet as well in the movie, and i apreciate NECA intention to be faithfull to the movie, but given how small is the scale and how thick is velvet the cape looks just wrong...it puffs soo much and dosnt have any kind of flow or weigth, plus it looks way too hairy....the hair really reflects ligth and almost looks like a fur coat.

The neck part is made of plastic and it gits on the Phantom´s neck perfectly once the head is removed, also theres a wire around it soo it can be posed flowing at the wind...i apreciate this detail but i dont know if that helps or make things worst. Posing this coat/cape in a natural way is really tricky and still it stands out and looks cheap compared to the rest of the figure.

Lastly, theres no organ, violin or any other muscial instrument, but a snorkel made with bamboo he uses to drown those who try to cross the river to his lair. This item is soo silly tough in the movie he uses eficiently and the sculpt and small mouth piece is very delicatelly crafted in here, i also wish NECA added some kind of musical instrument or a Don Juan Triunphant partiture.

I also wish they added an extra mask to pose the Phantom removing it, but i guess thats too much to ask with this many accesory and real fabric parts. Actually, just the sculpt and paint of the head is worth to get this figure since he looks really ghostly and haunting, perfect for any horror collection or anyone who collects history of cinema, a really brillant work from NECA.