zombie

In today's world of monster toy collectibles, it seems like nothing is too obscure for the action figure treatment. Distinctive Dummies (DD for short) has been releasing 8-inch Mego-style action figures for years now, focusing on characters from horror films between the silent era and the 1980s. I've never bought any of DD's products but from what I've seen, they do a limited run of a set of figures before moving on to do another limited run of a new set of figures, and so on. The latest film freak DD has added to its collectibles roster is the titular character from The Incredible Melting Man , a z-grade creature feature from 1977. This figure is part of DD's new "Science Gone Wrong!" set, which will also include figures based on characters from The Manster (1959), Monster on the Campus (1958) and The Wasp Woman (1959). The only thing that anyone can honestly recommend about the Melting Man movie are the makeup effects that were done be Rick Baker, an...

As I've said before on this blog, I consider myself to be very fortunate to have lived through the early years of video games. I remember a time when the distribution cycle of a video game title would begin in coin-op arcades and continue through ports to PCs and home consoles. Now, the Internet, PCs, home consoles and portable media devices rule most of the video game world, while the few surviving coin-op arcades feature titles that will (probably) never appear in any other medium. The same is true about how the video games appear: Most current games are so beautifully designed that they largely sell themselves through clips of game play footage. Yet when video games had nothing but blocky graphics and clunky sounds to offer, they needed a little extra help to convince people to play them. In honor of the artwork produced during early years of video game advertising, Dynamite Entertainment is publishing The Art of Atari by Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino. According to the boo...

It's amazing what you can find when you're just buzzing around the Internet. I'm currently working on a review of Curse of the Fly for a book called Unsung Horrors , which is being assembled by the same people who published 70s Monster Memories . I've been assembling my thoughts about the movie and looking around the web (no pun intended) to see if I can find any little-known factoids about the second sequel to the original The Fly . During my searches, I found a graphic arts company called Stormbrush, which is owned and operated by illustrator Calvin Chua, which has a design page titled "Project Fly Reboot" . Based on the information and pictures provided on the page, I'm guessing that this artwork is for a proposed remake/reboot of David Cronenberg's The Fly , which itself was a remake. The page includes some interesting designs, such as what the new telepod and teleportation process would be like, but the best part is the artwork for the new man-fl...

If you're a transforming robot toy fan who thinks that the Machine Robo line gets overlooked way too often, you're in luck. Action Toys is taking pre-orders for the first two action figures it is producing for its new Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos line. As the toy line's name suggests, the new designs bring these figures closer to how they appeared in the Revenge of Cronos anime series. The first two figures are re-designs of MR-01 Bike Robo (a.k.a. "Cy-Kill", as it was renamed for Tonka's Gobots line) and MR-17 Drill Robo (a.k.a. "Screw Head"). The second two figures will be re-designs of MR-02 Battle Robo (a.k.a. "Tank") and MR-25 Eagle Robo (a.k.a. "Leader-1"). Like the original Machine Robo MR-600 series line in the '80s, each figure features die-cast metal parts. However, even though the new figures are slightly larger than their original counterparts--measuring between 4.5" to 5" in height--the price is ...

One of my all-time favorite CGI animated comedies is Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), a loving tribute/sendup of the pulpy sci-fi flicks from the "Atomic Age" of the '50s and '60s. What I didn't know was that MvA went on to become a short-lived CGI cartoon on Nickelodeon that ran from March 2013 to February 2014. I found out about this series completely by accident last month when I was scrolling through my digital cable TV menu and saw an ad for MvA that looked familiar but included characters that I didn't recognize from the movie. Boy, was I surprised--not just to find it, but to see that it's a worthy follow-up to the movie that should have lasted longer than a single season. Read on for my complete review. Running at 26 episodes that still air as reruns on Nickelodeon, MvA picks up shortly after the events of the movie (and, presumably, after the two specials that followed-- Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space and Night of the Living Carrots ). The cast...

When horror icon Christopher Lee passed away last June, it felt like a particular era of horror cinema came to an end. Lee led an extremely impressive life, but his contributions to the horror genre--as well as pop culture in general--are truly legendary. In honor of his passing, UK horror magazine We Belong Dead has recently published a special 100 page, full-color issue as a tribute to Lee and the many memorable roles he brought to life on the silver screen. The issue covers Lee's prolific career, from his most popular films ( The Wicker Man , The Lord of the Rings series, his portrayal of Dracula in numerous films, etc.) to his more obscure work ( Night of the Big Heat , Taste of Fear , Nothing but the Night , etc.). The details provided in this issue about Lee's career are exhaustive in scope, both well-researched and well-written by a diverse selection of contributors. Among the personal fan reflections about Lee and in-depth analyses of the films and studios in which Le...

I don't collect Transformers merchandise, but I see articles and advertisements about it when I browse through Japanese robot toy sites. From what I can gather, one of the latest product lines for Transformers is called "Combiner Wars" , a line that consists of five or six transforming robot toys that combine into one bigger robot. Combiner robot toys have been around for a long time, and Transformers had quite a few of them even back in the '80s. Yet of the many combiner robot toys I've seen over the years, the ones that have consistently impressed me were the ones released by Bandai under the Machine Robo line. Whereas other robot toy lines are stuck in the novelty of combining smaller toys into a bigger toy, Machine Robo has used the concept of combination to promote creative play. Read on for a review of how Machine Robo has built upon its combiner toys throughout the years. Even though combining robots have been around in Japanese pop culture since the '7...

Sometimes it's nice to see a movie franchise find a second life in another medium, like novels and comic books. Other times, the second life turns out to be a turn for the worse. In the later category is The Fly: Outbreak , a comic book miniseries published by IDW Publishing. This miniseries recently concluded its fifth and final issue and after reading the entire series, I feel that this is one insect monster story that needs to be sent back to the telepods. Read on for my complete review. Outbreak was written by Brandon Seifert and drawn by menton3. It takes place after the events of The Fly II . Martin, son of the late Seth "Brundlefly" Brundle, has returned to Bartok Industries to continue his research into his father's telepods in order to find a lasting cure for his condition. At the beginning of the story, Martin learns that his work to permanently fix his own DNA has inadvertently created a transgenic pathogen that can turn people into insect-human hybrids. A...

As with previous Comic-Cons, I frequently find myself looking around the Web after the event is over to see what kinds of products that toy and collectibles companies are planning to release for geek-a-holics like me in the weeks and months to come. While I was surfing through one Comic-Con '15 photo set, I saw a product on display that I haven't seen in years: Madballs. Mondo's Madballs on display at Comic-Con 2015. A collectibles company named Mondo is planning to release new versions of the original Madballs toys that were first released in 1985 by AmToy, a subsidiary company of American Greetings. Madballs were intended to capitalize on the "gross out" humor that was popular in the mid-80s with trading cards such as Garbage Pail Kids , toys such as the Mad Scientist Monster Lab , and movies such as Gremlins . As such, Madballs were a hit, with the line expanding to offer action figures, comic books, animated home videos, and a video game. Even though Madball...

Way, way back in 2010, I posted a retrospective about Tomy's toy robot line Zoids and two of its less popular spin-offs, Starriors and Z-Knights. I recently learned that Tomy produced two other spin-offs during the '80s that weren't sold in the United States: Tribots and the Robot Anti-Terror Squad (R.A.T.S.). These two other lines also less popular than Zoids, but that doesn't make them look any less fun. Click below for more details and pictures of these interesting yet obscure robot toys from the '80s, and how they fit in to Tomy's approach to motorized, mechanical play. I learned about Tribots when I was looking around the ever-awesome Collection DX site. It posted a review of one of the Tribots toys, along with a picture that placed a Tribot and Starrior next to each other for comparison. Even though these robot figures are from different lines, both share Tomy's aesthetic of interchangeable parts and bulky, mechanical shapes--the same aesthetic that...