EVILUTION DEMON

Aaahh...2001, such a nice moment to be alive: TV channels like Cartoon Network or Fox Kids were in the best moment, videogames never been better with pieces like Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 2, movies still felt like in the 80s-90s and there was no super hero obsesion and for those that colected toys, the industry was in its most experimental and creative moment thanks to the seeds planted by McFarlane Toys and one of the brands blossoming was Stan Winston Creatures, the toys section of the studio that did the special effects of Jurasic Park, Predator or Small Soldiers.

The very first one of theyr lines was Creature Feature and consist on a collection of original monsters inspired by old 50s movies and since this was a kind of multimedia project, HBO produced one movie for each of this creatures just soo people had context and a back story for this figures. I wish now day we had something like this!! 

Last year i was able to get a couple of this Creature Feature in mint condition in theyr blister and was planing to review them for Halloween but it was a busy month for me, soo here it is at last the first one of the Stan Winston creations: the Evilution Demon from the movie How to Make a Monster.

This creature is on "base scale" soo he fits perfectly with other NECA, McFarlane or Storm figures or pretty much most of waths on the market. He can stand on his own pretty good, and thats a surprise given the state of his legs and pose but he comes wih a base anyways that helps keep balance much better. He is articulated on the neck, rigth shoulder, both biceps and wrists as well as his legs and waist. This is a 2001 figure soo back then articulations didnt had too much importance over scupt, soo this are only basic cut joints that only let you move each part to a single direction.

Basically, this Demon is pre-posed with his legs half bend and his arms open to the sides and while you can rotate the biceps and the wrists, the amount of poses for display is very very limited (find a new pose for this pictures was quiet a challengue for me) soo the limited posing is deffinetly part of the charm of this era figures.

Wath we got here is a videogame enemy that is building himself using metal scraps and ppieces of the corpses of his victims to have a body in the real wolrd soo this is mostly like a Frankenstein creture with robotic and mechanical parts, kind of a futuristic Cenobite coming out from a melted computer.

The face is a skull with a metalic jaw but it lack deffinition on the sculpture soo the teeth dont look very good. The helmeth with horns and spikes tough is really well sculpted as well as the fleshy part that have a kind of mummyfied texture on them. The metali chest plates and arms sections have intrincate engravings nicelly sculpted and i specially like a lot the legs....the legs a just a bunch of wires and very thin metal poles conected to the faw flesh. It looks gruesome and make wonder how he can stand (tough he is very ligth).

The pikes and the pieces of clotehs hanging from his torso and waist are made with soft plastic. Of course this sections dosnt botehr at all with the very limited articulation but they help to give to the clothing a much more nice texture. 

Paint is good, with the clothing mixing a soft brown with a black wash soo it looks dirty and used soo the texture stand out. The fleshy parts have a mix of an even ligther brown with a black brush and some red mixed on it soo it looks like scarred flesh. The metalic parts are a mix od blues, copper, golden and greys soo he is not a one color creature and the best part, for me, are the siny metalic eyes that stand out from the dull skull that is his face. The horns also have a very realistic white paint on them.

The base is really heavy and stranglely shped and it consist on a metalic flor with a giant computer on the side that is melting away and from its center is coming out the Evilution Demon. Theres a lot of mother boards and cables and panels in the leting away material but the paint job is really really bad. The metalic flor is just ligth blue and dosnt looks anything metalic, it looks very plastic.

Also whhile the melting away PC have green color on the boards and a dark wash to gives it shadow, is basically brown....just brown....and the brown dosnt mixat all with the plastic blue of the floor soo in the end is pretty difficult to find out wath this is....it almost liooks like a pile of shit.

While theres no accesories aside of the base, they also incuded an old looking monitor and a metalic piece that is brown....again...both items are brown for some reason and the Evilution Demon cant hold them or interact with them soo they are just liying on the floor in between his legs.

Oh! I almost forgot!!! The figure also inclides and interactive CD-ROOM that contains a behind the scenes look at how this monster was designed, how it was sculpted and painted and who are the people behind him. This is such a nice detail....i mean it really show this was a collector item for people really interested not only on the figure, but on its proces of creation and mixed with the HBO movie, also interested on its story.

I love this collection of monster figures, i really do, and i love who is behind them and the CD-ROOM thingy but to be honest, i dont like this figure at all. The paint is OK, the sculpt is good but while in concept it sounds pretty gruesome, the figure it self is not really interesting to look at. Theres just too much going on, too much brown....and that hides not only the gruesome details of the monster but also make him really uninteresting.

I think this was mostly a design failure, something that may looks amazing on screen wont be that good as a toy or in this scale and also the lack of expreicnce on the paint section really hurt this character and failed to make him come alive in the display. Its really a shame because most of the rest of the monsters are much much better looking.