The Thing (Blair Monster) (Movie Maniacs) Review

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The Thing (Blair Monster) (Movie Maniacs) Review

The Thing (Blair Monster)
Movie Maniacs (McFarlane Toys)So here's The Thing.
If you clicked on this, you know the drill: Rampant paranoia ensues while a shapeshifting alien runs amok. What we have here is one of a pair of monsters from McFarlane's Movie Maniacs line, which was kind of a crapshoot in terms of articulation, but generally looked good.
The Final Form here takes fewer creative liberties than the Norris Monster, more or less nailing the on-screen beast. The sculptors were absolutely on fire here, lovingly crafting squirming tentacles and ambiguous nodules alike. While a few small aspects are cheated, it hits all the major notes. I even fancy I can see a bit of Wilford Brimley in the face there. Good times. I like the way they used the tentacles to balance out the crooked lower half, too. Not even a hole in the foot; there's already three points of contact.
Paint is.... bland. The sort of muddy mess that kind of blends together at even a short distance. That's not Todd's fault, of course. Flesh tends to stick to fleshy colors, no matter what shape(s) it's in. The only break from it is the horrid little canine bursting out of the abdomen, bluish grey with a primary red strip of caul draped across the muzzle and arm.
Articulation, naturally, is where things fall flat. This is not the kind of design that permits super-poseability, particularly when you're just cutting swivels into a static sculpt. We get three wrists, five shoulders, and two necks, and all of them drastically break the sculpt when moved. In fact, a couple of them don't even sit flush. Also, mine was broken inside the package, hence my decision to just open it and fix that. The glue also gave way on the dog body while I was drilling it out, so that doesn't seem sturdy either. Oh well, everything else actually moves just fine, which wasn't a guarantee even then.
As a pile of malevolent stem cells from a hundred worlds, Thing carries no accessories when it's being obvious, so all we get is the usual (roughly in-scale) movie poster in a bony frame. This was before they removed one side from the frames, but warping is still a problem due to the construction. It's a nice enough backdrop, I suppose. A section of splintered floor is too much to ask here anyway.
I've complained a bit here, but them's the breaks with the early years of McStatues. Factor in the prices compared to a modern release of this kind, and the flaws seem easier to swallow. I guess it helps if you're old enough to remember how awesome it was just to have this thing squaring off against Snake Plissken, or Norman Bates dueling Ghostface. Besides, NECA hasn't done this one yet.