NOSFERATU

It was at the begining of the century that Mezco was born and soo far it has build a pretty interesting legacy for collectors, specially with theyr Living Dead Dolls series and ONE: 12 Collective series. Is weird but i dont have many of theyr figures since they seem to be pretty infatuated with DC and Marvel and theyr ONE:12 Collective figures are not my cup of tea: small scale action figures with real cloth outfits that look way to thick for them.

To conmemorate theyr 20 anniversary, Mezco remake theyr very first figure that launched theyr brand: Nosferatu from the series Silent Screamers. When i saw this figure for the first time i tough it was way to good to be real and way to distant as well, and i was rigth.....i searched it for a long time since ti was sold out in hours and the only way to get it was 2 or 3 times its price. Against all odds and without expecting it at all, i was able to finally get him!!

I rarelly post pictures of boxes in here but this time around, the box is as special and important as the figure since its a metalic lunch box with a pretty cool comic book style artwork of Count Orlock on it and in the sides. The lunch box looks vibrant and is extremelly sturdy and collector friendly since the figure can be stored back inside pretty easy: mark of a high end premium product for sure, specially with the "20 years" golden mark on top.

One element i dislike a lot from the ONE:12 Collective series its the tiny scale. I ton know why i always tough they were Figma/Figuarts size but in fact this figure is the same size as the NECA or even Storm figures soo it matches in scale with most action figures on the market. He can stand on his own nicelly but given the slim shape of his feet is safer to use the base included.

He is articulated on the neck, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles, all ball joints and double articulation on the elbows and knees soo his limbs have much more freedom to bend. A note included on the lunch box was that while the body have total feedom of movement, the outfit have limits soo every movement must be done with extra care.

While most of the articulations have total freedom of movement, the shoulders are very limited and only can move up to certain degree thanks to the jacket. Also his pants are made of elastic soo his legs have a good range of movement but abuse the elastic could be not a very good idea. Of course this guy is not meant to be displayed in a Spiderman like pose, Count Orlock is a monster of subtle movements soo the limit on the articulations is not that important.

The sculpt is really really really amazing....the blocky bodyshape with the hunchback and the slim and spidery limbs fits perfectly to the characters, despite not being screen accurate. This figure is based on the figure that Mezco did 20 years ago soo is basically a redesign of Nosferatu, Mezco´s own version of the vampire.

His face features has been exagerated and all traces of hair removed, no hair behind his ears and no eye brows, wich gives him a less human look. The intrincate wrinkles covering each part of his face are softly sculpted, in a pretty realistic look, with veins protunding on his bald skull and all that saggy skin around his mouth, this gives him deffinetly a look of a pretty ancient and old evil.

The long nose, tiny fangs peeking out of his wrinkled and old lips and cmpletelly black eye balls gives him a much more animal look, he looks even more like a rat now. Like a completelly bald and dead rat actually. His arms have the same old texture full of veins and his hands are soo amazing....not only the veins looks natural, but his loooong fingers and claws make his hand slook like spiders. Also they are made of soft plastic soo the delicate claws dont have any risk to be broken.

His shoes are slim and looks way to medieval....actually they kind of remidns me the shoes of a goblin for some reason and are painted on a pretty simple brown with very little of black just to accentuate the leather texture. 

His arms and head are also painte don a very pale white with pretty simple and delicate paint aplication to give him enough realism without any excess: dark brown around the eyes to deepen his already black sight, a little bit of soft pink at the tip of his vampire ears, a little bit around his lips, some grey/blue on the veins and black for the claws with some yellow on the tip, this is deffinetly the look i expect from a vampiric corpse.

This is all the sculpt and paint visile since the rest of the body is covered by the outfit. His pants are dark grey elastic pants that dosnt block any of the articulation but is better to nto force them since the elastic can be all lose on no time. This pants along side the very medieval shoes makes him looks kind of like a dark version of Peter Pan (while in the movie he is using pants from a suit with more conventional shoes).

He is using a purple shirt with his brown jacket on top. I am surprised this much clothes dosnt block his articulations specially at this scale but the fabric is soo incrediblly thin and delicate. The jacket have a leatherish texture and the tailoring, specially on the collar, is really stellar and beautifull. Unlike the movie version, this Count Orlok have the end parts of his sleeves ripped and torn as well as the end of the jacket around his hips. Theres some dirt as well that makes it looks like a jacket as old as the corpse thats using it. The small buttons at the front are all plastic and they seem to be thigthly glued and dont seem to come off.

The accesorys are as impresive as the figure itself. Aside of the relaxed hands he comes with an extra pair of hands shaped like a claw, ready to attack. This hands looks even more spidery than the normal relaxed hands and the quality of the sculpt and paint matched the base hands. He also comes with a rigth hand sculpted to hold accesorys and a left hand pointing out or ready to grav something. Again the quality is really amazing and every single of this extra hands is really helpfull for the display since they have a lot of personality with each small gesture.

He also comes with two extra heads. One seems to be reading or concentrating in something in front of him, with his eyes hald closed and his fangs hidden inside his mouth. The sculpt and paint are perfect but its a little bit to notice the differences with the basic face sculpt.

The other head have him in a screaming expression, Nosferatu in attack mode. The subtle change of expression on his eyes is pretty delicate but easy to see and the pointy piranha fangs coming out from his mouth in a yellow tone are really frithing. Change the heads is extremelly easy since only a small push on the chin makes them pop out and they stay in place perfectly despite the clothing.

He also have his trukish hat, a tubeteika. An specially decadent and exotic looking tubeteika, the wrinkles of it flows in  apretty natural way and while the hat is completelly black it have some different soft grey tones to give it depth and detail. It fits perfectly on any of his heads.

Theres also the castle keys, keept together with a metalic golden ring as seen on the movie. They fit perfectly between his spidery fingers and every single key have a completelly different size and configuration mixing siver and golden keys. A pretty nice attention to detail.

They also included a lamp tough this lamp is never seen on the movie, this is perhaps the most colorfull item on this figure. The design and sculpt is evidently very oriental, complete in golden color  with a centery section in stain glass with yellows and orange tiles. I am not sure if theres a pattern in the stain glass tough, it looks pretty random but the handle is articulated.

The other accesory is The Plague: a group of six rats to run around Count Orlok feet. Whule the paint is very simple (just brown with pink tails), each one of them have a completelly original sculpt, some of them are completlely flat, some others sre standing, the tails flow is totally different and one of them is turning around while another is standing in two feet. Its pretty difficult to see the difference given the small size but not a single one is the same.

The best accesory tough is his coffin. A coffin big enough for Count Orlok to lie inside. The sculpt is really good and the paint gives it a pretty realistic wooden texture. This is not Dracula´s coffin with intrincate decorations and red velvet inside, this is an extremelly old coffin read to fall apart. The lid just goes on top pretty losely and theres a brokken section that reveals half of Count Orlok face while he sleeps.

The best part perhaps is how is not empty: Theres a lot of cementery dirt inside as well as 14 rats crawiling around inside and triying to come out. When they release this kind of items they usually forget to sculpt or paint anything inside but this is the very first time i see a coffin like this and the paint and texture is specially nice on the dirt, very realistic looking and i am afraid my photos dont make it justice.

The base is circular and black, extremelly simple, and it have the tittle Nosferatu in red with 1922 in white as well as the Silent Screamers logo. Very simple but usefull since it have a small peg that fits on Count Orloks hole on his fit and keep him standing perfectly. This method is pretty basic but this is one of the very few times i see it working properlly.

The peg can be removed and exchanged for an articulated translucent arm with a clamp to hold him but i dont see this necesary since Nosferatu is not airborn and the peg works good enough to keep him standing. They also included a plastic bag to hold all his accesorys but since they can be stored much better on the lunch box i see no use for this bag.

Laslt theres a comic book. I dont know if other ONE:12 figures comes with books but this one is totally unrelated to Nosferatu. With the title Doomed Tales -The Origins of Aticus Doom this chronicles the origin and powers of Aticus Doom, necromagus prime and original character of Mezco with a figure that came out last year.

The art is nice as well as the colroing and the paper ad print impression are very high quality (unlike the Furay Planet). The narrative, the way characters talks and design, everything is a call back to the pulp fiction from the 1920s, with very direct unions to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Myths and it works wonderfull to spark interest on a very exotic looking character that is more like a dream project of a Lovecraft fan.

The only figure i have from ONE:12 Collective aside of this one is the Frankenstein Monster and i was really dissapointed by it. Not only Mezco never worked on any of the other Universal Monsters, but the Monster was soo.....boring. There wasnt anything bad about him but anything good either and i hated the tailoring of his outfit, soo the line never sparked any interest on my at all.

But this Nosferatu is quiet the oposite, not only is easy to recognise him but its different enough to make him interesting ad the sculpt, paint and tailoring and materials are miles above that sad Frankenstein Monster. Accesorys and presentation, everything in this figure is top notch and my only concern is that the materials of the outfit resists the march of time.

NECA will release his version of Ultimate Nosferatu soon but i somehow doubt they get close to the impresive and feral eerines of this version.

RED PYRAMID THING & BUBBLE HEAD NURSE

 The remake of Silent Hill 2 is slowlly closing, and the proof is all the anachronic merchadise we are starting to get. Its soo weird that Konami didnt care for any merchadise of Silent Hill for 15 years until the series was cancelled but i guess i cant complaing to get Silent Hill figures even after this ong. The very first company on the Silent Hill revival is Mezco, a company that i dont collect to much at all, i just have theyr very cool but incomplete Universal Monster,s line and they ONE Collective lonelly Frankesntein.

Now they surprised me with a Silent Hill Deluxe Boxed Set that inclides not one, but two figures together: Red Pyramid Thing and Bubble Head Nurse (wath a surprise) in they "5 Points" series. And thanks to my lack with Mezco i was expecting something bigger...much much bigger, since this figures are mre miniatures since they are much smaller than a Funko Pop and a little bit smaller than a Nendroid....

Despide the tiny size, Red Pyramid Thing have problems standing on his own but they give him a tiny black base. Its extremelly simple, but it works good. This series of figures are called "5 Points" because they have 5 points of articulation, like the old Kenner toys had in the 80s. Sadlly thats not true with Red Pyramid Thing since he can only move his shoulders and one leg, his head and other leg are completelly static. 

Theres no ball joints here, just traditional cut articulation soo he can only move his arms up ad down since theres not much point on moving his leg since that would make him even less stable. Soo he is mostly a tiny and super small statue, not very fun to play with him tough the sculpt is relaly really fantastic. He is preposed like if he is walking soo he dosnt looks static and his costume is made of soft rubber plastic soo it dosnt block the articulations (that dosnt exists).

The fabric texture is really nicelly done and you can even see the zipper on his back as well but my favorite part is the brain/flesh tissue coming out on the back of his helmeth. The paint job is really good as well, with the grey and dirty look on his costume and the stains of wet blood here and there, everything looks really really natural.His skin is purple with some darker areas around the muscles to give him a pretty decaying look. My only complaing here is the head, it just looks chocolate brown. I wish they give it more color tones or metalic paint of texture, i dunno, the head looks way to simple compared to the rest of his body.

His accesory is an extra rigth arm that have a more bended elbow. Its not easy to exchange the arms tough and given they are hold in place only by a plastic articulation make me thing evetually the plastic materiall will get harder and maybe, a extra twist will cut the articulation in half.

He also have his greant knife and great spear, both fit in his hand perfectly and the texture and sculpt on them is really good, specially on the wpar head. They also have metalic paint and finish, grey and golden, and they even have stains of dry blood. This makes me wonder why theye didnt paint like this Red Pyramid Head´s helmeth.

The Bubble Head Nurse is a little bit smaller that Red Pyramid and she cant stand on her own at all, soo the black base is highly needed. Unlike Pyramif Thingy, she does have 5 points of articulation: the head, the shoulders and legs, that gives her a little bit more versatility of movement but not that much, soo she is also sculpted preposed in a pretty shambling walk.

The sculpt is really good, all details are in here: the fleshy flamps at the side of her head, the weird square on her mouth with red paints (seriuslly, wath is this?? 22 years later and this thing design is still soo weird and unexplained), her tigth uniform and gloves. And the paint is relaly dirty as well and natural, looks like she came out from a blood pool and the human purple /pink colors on her flesh is very corpse looking.

My only compaling here is the hips. I dont mind the evident cut on her skirt for the articulation on her legs, but the central piece of the skirt is much darker than the outside pieces. Again, is weird they detailed the paint soo perfectly at such small scale but they had this paint inconsistency in such an evident and big place.

Just like Pyramid Thingy she comes with an extra rigth arm with a bend elbow but despite her arm being much more smaller, exchange them is much more easy and less delicate. She also comes with her rust pipe with metalic golden paint. The pipe is pretty small and delicate but despite the Nurse small hand it stays on its place pretty good.

Lastly theres a diorama piece made of cardboard. The material is pretty high wuality as well as the print, since it dosnt looks pixelated and the color palette matches the figures perfectly.  Dirty green tiles with blood all over for the floor and a wall with....rags of fabric hanging from it (???) with a green doot on the center, one of the rooms of the basemnt of the Brookhaven Hospital. 

Turn it around and you have second diorama option showing a titally different room with green and rusted walls. Its nice to have both options or even display Red Pyramid Thing in one room and the Bubble Head Nurse in another.

Honestly i am not very interested on minatures, i find them difficult to handle and not very spectacular, but miniature figures get much better when things goes epic in scale, like Migthy Max in the 90s with his big playsets of castles, cementerys, space ships or other fantastic places, or the McFarlane Monsters playsets with hidden traps of the opera house.

I really wish Mezco did a Playset instead of a diorama, a plastic sculpted room with remobavle pieces or hidden chambers and a second level, i dunno, that would have been much more fun and avoid the "character standing in front of a door" display.

Miniatures for videogames characters have a lot of potential, like a playset with an isometric view, like Silent Hill Book of Shadows or the old RPG´s. I really hope Mezco see that and release playsets instead AND something beyond this two....why Silent Hill have soo many characters and creatures but they keep doing this two and only this two???

NOSFERATU

Thanks to McFarlane Toys, at the begining of this century lots of action figure companys were born, picking up exciting licenses for the newlly formed adult collector sector, like movies, videogames, books or just original characters and one of those newborn companys was Aztec Toys who chose to laucnh themselves with Silent Screamers, a serires of action figures based on silent movies monsters, creatures from the 1900-1930 cinema.

Now day launching a serires based on such niche characters would be unthinkable....everything thats not DC or Avengers is a high risk scenario, but back collectors were hungry for this kind of obscure characters and it worked. The first line consisted on four figures: Cesare and Dr Caligari from The Cabinete of Dr Caligari and Knok Renfield and Nosferatu from Nosferatu.

While i found Knok and rhe Dr Caligari kind of boring, Cesare was a really fascinating figure...but i ended getting of course, Nosferatu since he is a must from any horror fan and a monster by one of the most horrifiying movies even after 100 years. He is taller than your average action figure and cant stand on his own at all thanks to the weird shape of his legs and is totally dependant of his base.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows and wrists and thats it, wich makes him a pretty static figure, almost like a statue, wich was the tradition back then. Articlations are limited since they are cut joints and only the shoulders have ball joints soo he can only move his elbows on one direction but thanks to the sculpt of his hands, he can achive a few different poses with certain movement.

He is not accurate, non of the figures are since the sculptor decided to go in a more cartoony way, exagerate the features of the characters to make them look as grotesc as he can and he trully achive it with Nosferatu. His entire body is twisted and contorted in a bizarre way, this vampire is advancing in a zombie like movement, you can see his hips bones protunding from his clothes, he is almost an skeleton.

His hands are huge out of proportion, with big beins covering them and long figer nails and his face is as bony as the rest of his body: with his huge vampire ears down, big insect like eyes and rat fangs in front, he dosnt looks human but more like a dead ghoul. The sculpt of the wrinkles and veins on his skin as well as the texture on his jacket are really amazing.

All this details looks more sharp thanks to a very precise painting as well. Blue ants and grey/black jacket all with different shades of grey to give it a....weird look...he kinda looks like an oil paint on canvas. His skin sectios are cast into a grey and sick looking color plastic with his red mouth and yrellow fingernails as the only brigth color elements.

Also this plastic is kinda transluscent because it have a weird iridisency, like a pearl, wich makes him more ghostly. Also his skin had an action feature: put him under the sun light and his skin will change color into purple. Sadlly, my figure skin change dosnt work anymore.

His only accesory is a big base with a floor full of rats and a crumbling wall. This base can be attached to Knok Renfield base to form a kind of diorama where Nosferatu is out of Renfield cell chamber in the asylum. The base is kinda thick and strong and the rats are all made with soft plastic wich kinda makes them odd to the touch.

I love how the rats have different colors tough and little red eyes, they add a lot of movement to an otherwise static base. 

Over time, Aztec Toys continue making more Silent Screamers and change its name to Mezco, producing the Living Dead Dolls, Universal Monsters and ONE:12 Collective line wich includes lots of DC and Marvel stuff soo they manage to have great succes in 20 years. Last year they even remake this Nosferatu figure as a ONO:12 style figure but it was soo unbelivable expensive i wasnt able to get it.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

It took me a year but i finally found the Creature from the Black Lagoon figure from Mezco. He was on the most unexpected place and at a very nice price as well considering this guy is not being produced anymore.

A year ago i got the Mummy from this same series and i was surprised how much i liked him, with his basic painting and limited articulations, he was still a pretty cool and macabre toy to display soo i was pretty hyped by the Gillman.

The Creature is really big and pretty heavy as well, he is Play Arts Kai sizeand have a pretty sharp and detailed sculpt, with the different plattes covering his skin and the scally texture both skulpted and painted. The gills on his head are specially impresive looking.

The paint is good, really basic but vibrant and effective (like the Mummy) with an intense green covering his body and yellows on his claws and softer greens on his fins. His eyes are perfectly painted even with theyr small size.

His articulations are more limited than the Mummy tough, wich is a big surprise. He can move his  chest, anklees, wrists, elbows and shoulders but the head is not articulated. Somehow he cant pull off as many poses as the Mummy can, wich is pretty odd given hes supposed to be a more action oriented character.

Thanks to his lack of articulations on his legs and the huge feet, he can stand perfectly.

This is not film accurate figure, is totally re-designed to make him looks more stylish and cartoony and the new touch of Mezco is really good. His body is lean and aerodynamic and his upper torso is big and muscly, his face features are nicelly similar to the design of the movie and my favorite details are his claws and feet. They are HUGE and totally intimidating.

This guy looks like a real predator with those razor sharp claws.

I hope at some point i can put my hands on Mezco´s version of the Frankenstein Monster since he looks pretty damn impresive as well but i hope Mezco also contine produce this line. Its been years since they started it and theres still no Dracula, Wolfman or Bride prototypes and thats pretty odd.

MUMMY

When i saw this guy i could not resist.

This was my very first Mezco figure (not that i have many) but i have to admit, the figure that made me notice them was Creature from the Black Lagoon. It looked amazing but it was incrediblly expensive! Soo when i saw this guy at half the price i had to got him.

This is Imhotep, Boris Karloff as The Mummy and unlike the other figures of him, this one is far from realistic. Hes not cartoony either, hes more “stylish” than anything, with those long and contorted limbs, big hands and feet. The head sculpt is still pretty recognizable as Karloff tough, you really need to be a specially talented scilptor to be able to handle both style in one, make an unrealistic portrait and yet make it recognizable.

He got great articulations on his neck and arms and thats it. It works good for a couple of poses but thats all. After all hes not supposed to be on ninja poses of giving a fliying kick and this very little but usefull articulation is enough to achive some very interesting poses.

I fisrt tough he was the black and withe version of the figure but hes not, hes actually colored (the golden ring on his finger).

Hes pretty big as well, as big as the MGS Play Arts Kai and taller than the rest of the PAKs and fits pretty nicelly on the shelf. They also released Frankenstein Monster and the Creature; and while i REALLY want the Creature, i am happy with this egyptian zombie and the eerie and disturbing look of his dead eyes.