Bela Lugosi as Dracula 8 Inch Retro Action Figure - Mego Corporation (2018)

Bela Lugosi as Dracula 8 Inch Retro Action Figure - Mego Corporation (2018)

In 2018, new action figures from Mego hit the store shelves for the first time in 35 years!  Mego was the king of action figures in the 1970s, but they didn't make the adjustment to the rapidly changing toy market in the '80s, and went out of business in 1983.  But now Mego president Marty Abrams has brought his company back, with an exclusive deal with Target stores, and new waves of figures are on sale now.  The second wave of figures is hitting Target stores and their website as I write this.  The first wave of figures featured characters from Star Trek, DC Comics, and various other characters from TV, movies, and music.  The best of that bunch, in my opinion, was this one: Bela Lugosi as Dracula.

"The light!"

This is not the Universal Monsters Dracula, rather, this is a figure licensed from the Bela Lugosi estate, and features a great likeness of the actor.  There have been many figures of Dracula made over the years, but hardly any of them have had the rights to Bela Lugosi's likeness.  As a result, we've gotten a lot of "generic" Draculas, that look like the character more or less, but lack the distinct facial features that make Lugosi's Dracula so special.  I'm a big Bela Lugosi fan, and I'm really excited to finally have a figure that actually looks like him.  Mego have really hit it out of the park with this one, too.  The facial sculpt is superb, the paint job is great, the costume is really, really nice.  This figure is just a much higher quality than what I would normally expect in an 8 inch retro figure.

Bela Lugosi

It's not totally perfect though.  One issue that a lot of the Bela Lugosi figures have is mismatched arms or hands.  When you buy the figure in the package, his hands and arms are covered by his cape.  But when folks have been bringing them home and opening them up, some people have found two right hands, or two left hands, or sometimes even two of the same arm, so that the elbow will bend in the wrong direction.  I read about this online at the Mego Museum, and when I opened my figure up, sure enough, I had this problem, too.  My figure has two left hands.  Weirdly enough, it doesn't bother me, though.  It almost makes him seem more of an unnatural or supernatural being, like two left hands is part of his vampire curse.

Two Left Hands!

Wave 2 of the new Mego figures are hitting the stores now, and there is a new Frankenstein figure in that wave, hopefully I will be picking that up soon, and when I do I'll try show it off this month for the Countdown to Halloween.  In the past, I've tried to post every day for the Countdown, but that's not happening this month, I just don't have as much spare time to blog as I used to.  But I've got a total of 8 Halloween TV show reviews that are already written and uploaded to the blog, which are scheduled to go online about every 4 days or so.  And in between, I'll be snapping photos of some of my monster action figures, and posting reviews of them as I go along.  So hopefully I'll have something new every couple of days.  And in the meantime please click on the link to the Countdown to Halloween and check out all of the other blogs that are participating this year!

Double Draculas!  2018 Mego Dracula and 2011 Diamond Select/EMCE Toys Dracula

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead


More photos after the break...

The Wolf Man (1941)

The Wolf Man (1941)

The Wolf Man is what I would consider to be more of an average, middle-of-the-road Universal Monster movie.  It's a good movie, don't get me wrong, but it lacks a certain pizzaz that most of the other Universal Pictures do.  I think it's because the monster itself lacks any personality.  The Wolf Man monster doesn't have the tragic lovesick sadness of the Mummy, or the gleeful madness of the Invisible Man.  The Wolf Man is more like a rabid dog, without any glimmer of the man underneath poking through.

The Wolf Man Spies on His Next Victim

The film also had a missed opportunity to add suspense.  Throughout the film, the notion that werewolfism is a psychological condition is brought up by various characters.  Lon Chaney Jr., who plays the Wolf Man, often wonders if he is really a werewolf or if he is going mad.  But the film shows us his transformation into the creature early on, which greatly undercuts the tension.  The audience knows he is a monster, even if he doesn't.  Interestingly enough, every scene with the Wolf Man shows him wearing the same outfit, with a dark button up shirt.  But Chaney's never wears those clothes before he transforms until his final transformation in the movie.  It makes me wonder if the filmmakers had originally planned to save the reveal of the Wolf Man until the end of the movie, and then this was changed sometime late in the production process.

Another problem is that Lon Chaney Jr. always seems a bit awkward and out of place when he is in human form.  Chaney plays Larry Talbot, who after spending time going to school and working in America, is returning to his ancestral home of Talbot Castle in England to help his father, Sir John Talbot (played by Claude Rains) manage the castle.  Chaney is a big, tall, almost lumbering presence, with an almost goofy American personality.  Rains is short, thin, and a dignified Englishman.  It's really hard to believe that the two are father and son.

Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot

Chaney does do a good job playing Talbot's panic and fear, though.  You do believe he is truly distressed about the idea of turning into a werewolf and killing people.  The film also has some nice sets and cinematography, and a fun cameo from Bela Lugosi.  So even with it's flaws, it's still an enjoyable picture, and a must-see for fans of Universal Horror movies.

BONUS!  MOVIE TRAILER:

The Wolf Man (1941) Fan Trailer


MORE SCREENCAPS AFTER THE BREAK...

Action Figures I'm Excited About For 2014, Part 1

RETRO KENNER-STYLE 3 ¾" ACTION FIGURES

Super7 and Funko just released their awesome collection of Alien action figures, based on Kenner's unreleased prototypes from 1979, but that is just the tip of the iceberg for retro, Kenner-style 3 ¾" action figures.  This style of action figures hits me hard in the nostalgia center of the brain, becuase these were the kind of figures I loved the best when I was a kid.  I had a huge collection of Kenner Star Wars figures in the late '70s and early '80s, as well as similar 3 ¾" figures from lines like Fisher-Price Adventure People, Micronauts, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, Clash of the Titans, and more.

Next up is Zica Toy's line of action figures based on The Six Million Dollar Man.  These toys should hopefully be out any time now (they were supposed to be released already, but they got delayed in customs).

After that, Funko is working on a whole line of figures in this style from a mind-boggling array of licenses, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, Universal Monsters, Back to the Future, Goonies, Terminator 1 & 2, Predator, The Rocketeer, Nightmare Before Christmas, Escape from New York, Pulp Fiction, and Classic Star Trek!  Wow, I can't wait to see some of these.  Hopefully we'll see some prototypes for these toys at ToyFair in February.

NEXT: In "Action Figures I'm Excited About For 2014, Part 2," I'll take a look at some non-retro 3 ¾" action figures, from The Four Horsemen and Mattel.

The Raven (1935)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2013

Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Edgar Allan Poe collide in 1935's

THE RAVEN

"The Raven" is one of several works of Edgar Allan Poe that are referenced in the 1935 film of the same name.  It's not actually an adaptation of Poe's classic poem, but I guess calling the film "Bela Lugosi plays a weirdo doctor who is obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe" wouldn't have the same ring to it.

"Trust me, I'm a doctor."

In the film Lugosi plays Dr. Richard Vollin, a highly gifted, but creepy doctor who is, you guessed it, obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe.  Dr. Vollin was a genius surgeon, but he is now retired, and spends his time recreating torture devices from Poe stories in his basement dungeon.  However, he doesn't actually torture people in them.  It's really just a hobby for him.  He's not crazy in the beginning of the film, he's just a weirdo.

"Subtle" Symbolism

Dr. Vollin is coerced out of retirement by a local judge, when his daughter is comatized in an automobile accident.  After saving the woman's life, Vollin falls in love with her.  But the girl is not interested in him like that, and is engaged to be married to another man.  When the judge notices Lugosi's interest, he tells him to stay away from her, basically because he is too old, and and a creepy weirdo to boot.  And then Bela's character goes insane.

Creepy Peeper

The main flaw with this film is that Lugosi's character just sort of becomes insane.  There should have been a sense of increased longing and pressure on his part, before he finally has had all he can take and snaps.  But there isn't.  Instead, he's just a crazy guy who got crazier.  Mad Love, another horror film from the same year, starring Peter Lorre, had a very similar story about an eccentric doctor who falls in love, is rejected, and slowly goes insane.  That film really did it right.  Of course, it benefited by having a great actor like Lorre in the lead.  He could really sell the insanity.  Bela Lugosi simply doesn't have the same acting skills, and just hams everything up.  To be fair though, in his best roles that worked well for him. 

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Gruesome Twosome

Boris Karloff received top billing, but he's really more of a supporting character, and he doesn't appear until about a third of the way in to the film.  He's basically an "Igor" to Lugosi's mad scientist.  Karloff makes the most of his screen time, though, and delivers a much more believable performance than Lugosi.

The Pit's Pendulum

I don't think I'll be spoiling anything by saying that Lugosi's torture chambers play a big role in the finale of the film.  Overall, this was not on the same level of quality as the Vincent Price Poe films that would later be made in the 1960s, but it was still a good example of vintage movie horror.


More screencaps after the jump...

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

KARLOFF THE UNCANNY

DAY 13 - 18 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN

Son of Frankenstein (1939) - Movie review plus screencaps:

Son of Frankenstein

Son of Frankenstein is an interesting entry in the history of the Universal Monsters series.  This is the third Universal Frankenstein film, following 1931's Frankenstein, and 1935's The Bride of Frankenstein.  It is the first Frankenstein film not to be directed by James Whale, and it is the last one to feature Boris Karloff as The Monster.  It is also the last of Universal's big budget monster movies.  After this film, the rest of the series was produced as low-budget, "b-pictures," re-using sets, special effects, and actors from picture to picture.

Castle Frankenstein

This is a solid, if a little unoriginal, picture in the series.  the plot features Basil Rathbone as "Dr. Wolf von Frankenstein," the son of Colin Clive's "Henry Frankenstein" from the previous movies.  He returns to his ancestral home, after a long period of absence, with his wife and young son, hoping to rehabilitate his family name.  There he discovers the body of his father's Monster, in a coma, but with the heart still beating.  he continues his father's experiments in order to revive the creature and show the world that his father was a genius, not a madman.  As to be expected, this ends up with horrific results, as things get out of the doctor's control, and the awakened Monster goes on a killing spree, with the aid of his demented sidekick Ygor (played by Bela Lugosi).   In the climactic scene, The Monster is finally destroyed by being knocked into a pit of boiling sulfur.   After The Monster's death we are then treated to a brief and inexplicable tacked-on happy ending featuring Wolf von Frankenstein and his family.  Thus ends one of the greatest horror movie series of all time, and with the destruction of the Monster, it can be assured that there won't be any more sequels (I could be wrong about this).

On the Slab

The Monster is not nearly as interesting this time around as he was in the previous two films.  He has lost the ability to speak, and he has lost most of his empathy as well.  There are a few, too-brief, scenes where The Monster shows flashes of emotion and humanity.  These include his reaction to seeing his reflection in the mirror, his anguish at the death of a friend, and his attitude towards Wolf von Frankenstein's young son. Unfortunately, he spends most of his time in the film either unconscious, or killing people at the bidding of Ygor, and generally comes across as a mindless servant and killing machine.  This, I think, was a mistake on the part of the filmmakers, as the ability to empathize with The Monster and his plight was the key to the success of this series, and the reason that Frankenstein's Monster has become such a beloved figure in pop culture.  You take that away, and you're left with just a generic boogeyman, no different than the monsters from any other horror films.  It doesn't surprise me that Boris Karloff did not want to return as The Monster again after this.

Research, Interrupted

This is not to say that it's a bad movie.  It has some nice, shadowy, black and white cinematography, and the performances from Karloff, Rathbone, and Lugosi are all entertaining.  Even if it's all a bit on the generic side, it's still a lot of fun, as pretty much all of the 1930s Universal Monsters movies are.  I would definitely recommend this if you are a fan of these types of movies.

Son of Frankenstein Trailer

Rating: 3½ Robots (out of 5)

More screencaps after the jump...

Halloween Skins for Freedom Force

Here are a couple of my Freedom Force skins perfect for Halloween. It's Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster. I've udpdated these skins since the last time I uploaded them. I increased the size from 256X256 to 512X512 for increased resolution. I've also added reflections to the Bela Lugosi skin so you can use it with the male_suit_effects mesh.