Without a moment of hesitation I pounced on the Svengoolie [FOTD #2,661] figure because I watch his show. I briefly hesitated on the Vampira Dark Goddess of Horror figure, mostly because I haven't seen her show from the 1950s due to my not existing yet. She paved the way for a lot of other horror hosts, and maybe even those goth kids you know. Today she may be most famous as the mute ghoul in Plan 9 from Outer Space (or as Lisa Marie's character in Tim Burton's Ed Wood movie.) She's a legend! But also obscure.
Many fans have made the argument that ReAction Figures (and indeed all retro figures) are meant to be kept packaged and not play with, and I always oppose this perspective. But I'll make an exception here. The Ed Repka artwork is stunning, and the sculpt is good - but this one doesn't really read as a retro figure at all. Super7 has been giving us really good head sculpts on bodies that are simplified, but don't quite generally have the folds and subtle detail on a retro figure. Vampira throws it all out the window with arms separately molded from the sleeves, and hanging folds on her dress that are pointy and quite sharp.
Ed Repka's painting is marvelous, but also highlights some differences between the figure and the actual person. The hair (or wig?) worn by Maila Nurmi was a little flatter in most shots, and the figure has a lot more body in her hair. Since she's not in black and white, the toy decided to give her a blue-gray skin with bright red lips and blue eyes. This may be accurate, but it does read as weird given how the photos I've seen are mostly black and white, with a little bit of a hint of pink in the color photos and the NECA figure. (Maybe Dana Gould knows, he drove her around and helped her out for years.) The coloring doesn't look quite right to me, which probably means I'm in for the inevitable black-and-white and/or glow-in-the-dark variants.
The sculptors did a good job overall, and so did the painters. The major elements are all here, with high eyebrows, claw-like fingernails, a too-tight dress, and a waist that suggest some sort of mass displacement. (It's beyond my ability to comprehend, but the actual person seems to have an even tinier waist.) The challenge of replicating a person with a specific look - who in and of herself was a self-made work of art - Super7 had an incredible challenge. And they made a great-looking figure, but I don't know if the decision to have one exposed leg in fishnets looked quite right to me, given I mostly remember how she looked from Plan 9. (Other photos do show the fishnets.) NECA went with a look that sems to be a cross between Plan 9 and her horror host - no ripped clothes, and ghoul-like hand poses.
If have no idea who this is, go listen to The Dana Gould Hour backlog and go watch Ed Wood. The story about how she was hired - and then fired - from her own show before being replaced by Elvira is really sad, but it's interesting to see that there's a posthumous licensing program about a horror show that was canceled before a lot of her fans were even born. I'm really hoping Super7 does more horror host figures - they're such a neat showbiz niche, even the fake ones. (Count Floyd, please?) For those looking for more horror host figures, Plastic Meatball did a few of Joe Bob Briggs. She may not be exactly what I imagined like, say, Svengoolie, but it's not like we're going to see another 3 3/4-inch Vampira sculpt in my lifetime. Get her - or the NECA one, if you see her.
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