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Write a Review link for that item. Puppet Master (Neca) (Neca)There’s a lot of long-running horror film franchises; Halloween, Freddy, Jason, Chucky… but one of the lesser-known ones is Full Moon Features’ Puppet Master. The series about a gang of killer puppets has only seen direct-to-video releases, but it’s still gotten quite a couple films and a decent following. Full Moon themselves produced quite a bit of merchandise for the franchise already, but NECA’s taking a shot at it now. They announced their figures back in October last year, and now they’re beginning to hit comic shops and specialty retailers. I got Blade and Torch a while back, and it’s worth noting that these are two-packs (thankfully not $50 ones…). The packaging is a bit unique to this line, and a main reason for that is because they’re two packs. So how could NECA fit two figures in a regular-sized Ultimate box? They cut out the fifth panel flap in favor of having the box velcro open right in the middle so you can see both figures. It’s done up like Andre Toulon’s case, and it looks great on both the inside and out. Just snip some tape and plastic ties and everything should be easy to take out of the box. First we got the leader of the puppets: Blade. When the original puppet had synthetic hair and a fabric trench coat, converting all that to plastic on a figure like 1/3 the size and making it look good can be difficult, but NECA managed to make it look nice. However, the coat isn’t as baggy as it should be, and the hair looks kind of off. The head looks accurate, with the blocky look on the face and the dagger eyes, and there’s two heads: the regular head, and a blood-splattered one with his eyes jutting forward. The paint on the figure looks great, with a good amount of wash to bring out the details, and the blood on the alternate head looks amazing. Blade stands about 4” tall from the feet to the hat, so he should scale well with human figures. Blade is well articulated for a little guy, with a ball-jointed head, hinged jaw, swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, and knees, swivel wrists, ball-jointed waist and hips, and swivel/hinge/rocker ankles. Everything moves well on him, with no stuck joints at all, and the heads swap easily. The elbows have plenty of bend, but the legs are a bit restricted due to the coat. However, there is a gap in the left shoulder that makes the elbow a bit wobbly, and the left leg tends to pop off the ball. Nothing that really hinders things, though. On the other hand, it can be hard to get up standing up right with the thin legs, and the lack of peg holes in the feet doesn’t help. Aside from the extra head, there’s also an extra bloody knife, and swapping them out is easy to do. The other figure included here is Torch, who is not one of the original six puppets but rather was introduced in the second film. Still, his popularity made him a must for the first assortment. The head on him isn’t as accurate as Blade’s is, being taller than it should be, but the trench coat on him looks much nicer. The detail on it looks great, and the texture is good enough to match the fabric one in-film. The metallic paint looks nice, and there’s barely any bleed at all on the figure. They also did a good job replicating the glowing eyes, though some red wash around them could make it clearer. He stands about 4 ½” tall, a bit bigger than Blade, but that’s because of the spike on his head. The articulation on Torch is similar to Blade, but with a couple differences. He has a ball-jointed neck, shoulders, chest, and hips, hinged jaw, swivel/hinge elbows (double-type), left wrist, and knees, swivel right wrist and thighs, and rocker/hinge ankles (3/28/23 update: after playing around with him a bit, I found out Torch has a hinge joint for the head, allowing him to look up and down more). Like Blade, the joints move smoothly, but the hips are much less restricted by the coat. However, the ankles do pop off easily. His only accessory is a flame effect that attaches to his flamethrower hand, and it fits on tightly. Let’s face it, as well as Full Moon did when they made their own Puppet Master figures, NECA surely topped them as far as I’m concerned. Sure, they aren’t fully accurate to their on-screen appearance and there’s a few joint issues here and there, but they still did well in every other category. Sure, it’s impressive that the creators and owners of a license can make their own property into toys themselves, like what McFarlane Toys did with Spawn, but if another company can do better than they did, it just goes to show what one is capable of.   by RMaster007 |
| Baxter Stockman |  | Submission Order |  | Quint (Shark Battle) |
| None | | Puppet Master (Neca) Series | | Pinhead / Tunneler |
| Baxter Stockman | | Written by RMaster007 | | Quint (Shark Battle) |
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