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NECA Toys The Howling Ultimate Werewolf Figure Review
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00:00When the howling starts, the horror begins. Here's your spooky spot on NECA Toys, the howling ultimate werewolf action figure.
00:30What was supposed to be a healing retreat in the woods for a TV news anchor turns out to be a terrifying ordeal full of transforming werewolves.
00:45From the 1981 horror classic directed by Joe Dante, The Howling, comes the ultimate werewolf action figure by NECA.
00:51Standing over nine inches tall, it is fully articulated and even features a moving jaw ready to sink its teeth into its next victim.
00:57It includes three interchangeable heads, several sets of hands, and a posing base with two different sized rods for various height positions.
01:04Comes in a collector-friendly window box packaging with opening front flap, making it perfect for display.
01:08I don't think you need to be a bright boy to know that fans of the original 1981 classic Howling have been clamoring and clawing through Facebook fan pages and news story sites for years.
01:16In the off chance that they would read one day that NECA was announcing doing an ultimate action figure based on one of the coolest designed werewolves ever in cinematic film.
01:23But does it live, though, up to the hype? Before we answer all those furry details, we'll take the not-so-furry, not-so-transforming tape measure and see how tall the howling werewolf stands.
01:32Up to the very top of his ears, all the better, of course, to hear you with.
01:35You're looking at impressively standing nine and a quarter inches in height, making it a figure that's 23 and a half centimeters tall.
01:41I guess you could say I've taken a lichen to some of the werewolf figures we've gotten from NECA in the past.
01:44As the examples of bringing in right now the Kessler werewolf from American Werewolf in London.
01:49Prior to, of course, crossing paths with the canine, he wasn't, though, the Kessler werewolf.
01:52He was just regular David Kessler.
01:54And, of course, his buddy, he's still, still alive.
01:56Of course, here's also what the figure looks like with Jack Goodman.
01:58And even going further back from that, here's also what the figure looks like with the long-chainy werewolf, all done here in black and white.
02:04I'll tell you, out the gate and out the box, the howling werewolf does have a difficult time to stand.
02:08If you're familiar with, like, the xenomorphs, for example, from NECA, they've done a somewhat similar design.
02:12In fact, he has very lean, limber-looking legs, and he has the articulation points kind of working the opposite way.
02:17So, because of that, you're going to have a tough time to get the figure to stand.
02:20It's only by lady luck alone that I've got the figure currently standing.
02:23To help, though, assist with that, NECA does actually technically include a clear acrylic display stand.
02:28It consists of, really, four parts.
02:30You get yourself a circular display base, and then you get two various-sized pulls, depending on how much length you really need.
02:36I find, really, the longer of the two works the best.
02:39And then you also get yourself a ball-socketed clip.
02:42My worry, though, of this being clear plastic is the fact that this may start to crack over time, especially if you keep swapping out the parts.
02:48If I happen to, hopefully, have this facing the right way.
02:51You can see that in the top, both of them actually have sockets, little cup joints, and you take yourself whatever one that you want to use.
02:57Again, I generally go with the longer one.
02:58And you take the ball joint for that, and you plug it in place.
03:02Now, again, not only are you going to worry about having that being a part that's going to crack on you,
03:06but I also worry with this being a C-clip like this, that this may start to fracture over time as well.
03:11It hasn't happened yet.
03:12It hasn't happened yet.
03:13But I can certainly see that being something that's going to be a problem down the road.
03:16This just plugs in place.
03:18So, of course, you don't want to plug in that side, but you're going to plug in the more narrow side, and that goes into the bottom of the base.
03:24Now, I have already noticed, though, with the few times that I've done that, see, there's a little line right there.
03:29It's right there.
03:31I don't know if that's a fracture line or if it actually came out of the packaging that way.
03:35But again, you're just basically going to push this into this.
03:38You may actually have to put a little bit of pressure, more than you really think you need to do.
03:41And then that just plugs in place like that.
03:44Oh, man, oh, man, I'm having a harder time doing this than I thought I really would.
03:48Probably doesn't help that I have all this extra moisturizer on my hands.
03:50Anyways, though, like I was saying, this really does plug in place.
03:55And then this is going to plug onto the bottom undercarriage of all the places it needs to be.
03:59It plugs to the undercarriage.
04:01And you really would hope that in this case, the werewolf doesn't have nards, because that's exactly where it needs to go.
04:06So essentially what you're really doing, though, is that with the clamp, it fits really like around this area of all the places I know.
04:12It has to plug in right there for the werewolf.
04:15And that sort of helps to stabilize the figure.
04:17If we kind of just kind of move everything out all out of the way, get out of the way.
04:19And this basically, again, just clamps underneath the, again, the groin area of the werewolf.
04:24I'm just going to kind of hold it here for right now.
04:26You don't really have to clamp it, so to speak, even if it just rests against it.
04:31I know it draws more attention to the fact that clearly he's resting on a clear base.
04:35But still, though, it's going to prevent the figure from falling over.
04:37And that's at the end of the day.
04:38The thing that you really want the most out of him is that he's not going to fall over on you.
04:42And having hit just with the outlet display base and just bouncing him alone, I can only tell you, I mean, counting more on just two hands, probably even have to bring up my feet for that.
04:51This guy has fallen over several times during this review.
04:54I just had to go back and obviously reshoot those scenes.
04:57But again, like the figure stands fine.
04:58If, again, you make use of the display stand, certainly would encourage you guys to use the display stand if you have it.
05:03For the figure's accessories, though, he does have a pair of relaxed hands on the ends of his forearms.
05:07You can also easily swap those out with more kind of gestured hands where you can see like the claws are a little bit more angled in.
05:14And then he also has more feral looking hands with wider looking fingers.
05:18All the hands themselves, I will, again, want to draw your attention to just how well they're actually painted.
05:23The nails on the ends are using kind of more of a beige color.
05:26And even like the limber looking fingers.
05:28Oh, man, oh, man.
05:29Look how cool those fingers actually are.
05:31I do like that they've also added a sheen to this, too.
05:33So it looks like the fur is kind of wet.
05:35But, again, to swap out the hands, it's just a case of taking the hands that he currently has and just wiggle them off the posts.
05:42So, again, you just kind of wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
05:43If you're having a hard time doing any of these, by the way, I would certainly encourage heating these hands first in hot water.
05:48But I haven't had any problems with them so far.
05:51So far, I say.
05:52And, again, we're just going to plug the new hand in place.
05:54That's all that's really required.
05:56And each of the hands, by the way, do have a hinge.
05:57So you can move those back and forth as well.
05:59That's not just the only thing that's swappable as well for the werewolf.
06:02Let's just kind of move his stand out of the way for right now.
06:05He does also have some swappable heads.
06:07Now, if you get this guy straight out of the packaging the way that he is right now, he's still already good to go and display on the stand, display on your shelf the way he looks.
06:13With basically just a closed mouth, you can still fully see the top and the bottom of his canine teeth.
06:18It's hard, though, to make out his eyes because they're quite incredibly small.
06:24But I do like that they've colored them in a nice bright yellow.
06:26So even though as small as those papers may be, you can still make out that the werewolf is looking right at you.
06:31And I don't know about you guys, but I feel a little uneasy that this werewolf is looking at me right now.
06:37Possible possibilities.
06:38The figure does also have some swappable heads.
06:40So he also has a more growling head, which is super cool.
06:45I do like the look of this head sculpt, but truth be told, I got to go with maybe like the howling face is probably my favorite of the three.
06:51There's also one that has a bloody mouth.
06:53And that actually does benefit from not only just having some additional red, but it does also have a hingeable jaw as well.
06:58But I just want to quickly show you what this one looks like.
07:01Super, super cool looking head.
07:02They all plug in essentially the exact same way.
07:05What's, though, rather interesting, if you look at the undercarriage or undersection of the head, you can see that it actually says number two.
07:11If you look at this one, which is the one I wanted to bring in last, if you look on the bottom of that, it actually says, I think it says three.
07:17It's very, really hard and faint to see, but I think it does actually have a number on it.
07:21And it's right there on the side.
07:23What's cool, though, about this head is unlike the other two, it meets in the middle.
07:27So we just put this figure down here for a second.
07:29If you like, though, the closed mouth, this one benefits from being able to actually close its mouth.
07:34Or if, again, if you want to have it in a full howling pose, you can also bring the mouth out as well.
07:39Now, this one doesn't benefit from that.
07:41But again, like if you don't mind the fact that this has a little bit of extra rouge on it, it's pretty cool that you can actually have a hingeable jaw.
07:46And then basically, you know, as you want to have the figure displayed on the shelf, one day you may go up to and say, you know what?
07:51Wolfie needs to keep his mouth closed.
07:53You can do that.
07:53Or again, you can open it completely out.
07:56Super cool looking head sculpt, though, in all three of them.
07:59Again, I think like the blood adds a lot of extra character to it.
08:02Some may not really like the idea of having the extra blood.
08:04So I like that at least they give you the other option.
08:06But this one just doesn't benefit from having a hingeable jaw.
08:09The hinge hides pretty well, too.
08:12Of course, because he does also have the additional draping of fur on the front and the sides of his cheek,
08:15it does actually do a nice job of covering over what normally would be a sightly hinge joint,
08:19would likely peg in place on either side here.
08:22Again, the eyes are really kind of hard to see and make out.
08:25But with the brightness used of that yellow, they do do manage to do a pretty good job of actually popping pretty well.
08:31Of course, this howling werewolf is also known for having really long ears.
08:35And I think they've done a nice job of sculpting that as well.
08:37To change out the head.
08:38Now, what's kind of cool also about the werewolf, too, is that when you pop the head off from the collar,
08:43you can actually remove these collar pieces, too.
08:46I mean, it looks a little unsightly, obviously, removing the collar.
08:48But just to show you, though, that it's also something that you can take off.
08:51Basically, what it is, is underneath, there's a ball joint here, and there's a ball joint here.
08:55And of course, yeah, I know, there's a ball joint here as well.
08:58But with all those three individual component pieces, there's quite a bit of flexibility going on here.
09:03And then basically, the plastic pieces of the fur just go over top of that.
09:07One thing I did actually find that was helpful for adding the new head sculpts is they don't find the easiest way to peg onto the ball joints right away.
09:15If you take the fur off, though, I found it was just enough to kind of give an extra little bit of leverage.
09:21They can plug the heads properly in place just to kind of work the ball joints in there.
09:25And then once you kind of relaxed enough of the socket inside, then you can just take the head back off like that.
09:32Put the fur collar pieces over top and then put the head back in place.
09:38There's just enough of the post.
09:39I feel like it could have been probably just a little bit longer to help assist attaching onto the head.
09:43But again, like just put a little bit of pressure onto the head.
09:45Make sure it's fully securely on there.
09:47And now you got yourself the werewolf that has the howling mouth, which is super, again, cool and creepy.
09:54Again, with the three different head options available, some may have just preferred to go with this head sculpt.
09:58I think if like if it was a case where let's just say I only had let's put this on for a second.
10:04If I only had this head sculpt and I only had this one here, likely I definitely would have gone with this one because I think that just makes for a much cooler looking werewolf.
10:10If any ever you get a chance that I really have a werewolf howling, especially with a Kessler wolf, that's usually the way I have the figure displayed.
10:17Anyways, though, for the rest of the figure's body, I know we kind of spent a whole lot of time talking about the head sculpt.
10:21If we kind of carry on our journey for the rest of the fur and all the sculpting that they've incorporated here, I think the fur looks pretty good.
10:27I feel like there are aspects in the movie where the fur comes across a little bit more lighter than what we're actually getting here.
10:32Generally, though, the tone that they went with is kind of more of a dark gray, very dark chestnut brown with like the lighter undercarriage, though, is done.
10:40It's kind of more of a brushing of a very almost like whitish brown that they've put there as well.
10:45It helps just to add a little bit of necessary color.
10:47I think it certainly does help.
10:48It goes a long way.
10:48There's also a few little aspects of that, too, also on the shoulder and the bicep area.
10:53But mostly, though, you're looking at a lot of brown.
10:55You're looking at a lot of chestnut brown.
10:57And it looks good.
10:58I think it looks really well.
10:59And it does look certainly like the werewolf.
11:00We don't get really a lot of full glance shots of the werewolf.
11:03It's generally like a lot of close-up shots.
11:05It's a lot of like cut moving scenes fast where the werewolf doesn't really get a chance.
11:09Or you don't really get a chance as a viewer to kind of really see what's all going on with the designs.
11:13Now, one thing, though, about the werewolf is that, again, he does have very thin looking legs.
11:18And he has a real hard time to stand up.
11:20The biggest thing that's kind of really facing his figure is the fact he does have such small feet.
11:25These tiny little feet.
11:26You've got to imagine, like, how much little it actually has for a footprint to stand it on a shelf.
11:31So, again, it's a really good thing that they include the display stand.
11:33Which, again, has to go in all the worst places.
11:36It has to go right there.
11:37But at least it does give you a way of giving some additional stability to the figure.
11:40He does also have a little bit more of a softer plastic right here.
11:43One of the things that you may also start to notice, too, when you're displaying this figure is, like, the thigh tends to pop a little further out from the lower abdomen area.
11:51It's not something you can necessarily fix because it is naturally, though, a much shorter piece right here.
11:56It doesn't actually stick out wide enough to cover over the legs.
12:00I wish it was a little bit more seamless where they made it a little bit wider.
12:03But in the end, though, I'd rather have traded this off for a much more narrower abdomen area.
12:07So, for the figure's articulation, though, again, we'll start back to the head.
12:11That head's going to be on a ball joint.
12:12We've kind of already established that.
12:14So, the head on its own essentially has a ball joint here and a ball joint here.
12:18That's before we even look at the rest of the stuff going on.
12:20So, with that alone, the head can really quite freely move up and down, rock it back and forth.
12:24Of course, you can move it down.
12:25And you can turn it really all the way around if you wanted to.
12:28As though you turn it around, you may run the risk of this popping off the ball joint.
12:32But it looked like I attacked it pretty securely.
12:34This head also does benefit from, we've already established, a hingeable job.
12:38So, of course, you can open and close that as well.
12:40Now, with that, you've also got the ball joint here and you've got a ball joint here.
12:43So, with those two, you can actually have an additional posability in the neck.
12:47As you sort of, though, move the neck, it will break up some of the molding.
12:51And you can kind of see there are some gap spaces.
12:53So, if you choose to have, like, the werewolf howling to the moon,
12:57you may want to then go back in there and just fix up the color.
13:00One thing that's kind of good, though, too, is even if the color piece, the fur,
13:03where it goes further down, they actually did sculpt this section.
13:07If I get my blasted finger out of the way, they sculpted the top, though, of this post.
13:10So, they actually did sculpt some additional fur.
13:12It's not, though, as the same brown color.
13:15I kind of wish it was a little bit more of the same brown.
13:17So, because, like, if you look at it and have it displayed this way,
13:19you can, though, notice that this is much more gray versus the brown that's all around it.
13:23So, again, like, fairly decent posability in the head moves fairly freely a lot better than I really thought it would.
13:30The top of the torso is also going to be on a very good ball joint,
13:32so you can easily move the torso all the way around.
13:35These arms also do rotate all the way around.
13:37There's a hinge joint there as well.
13:39The hinge joint gives about a T-pose, full 90-degree angle bend, if you prefer.
13:44Of course, there's also this swivel in the bicep.
13:46That's got that, too.
13:47And the figure does also have a single hinge in the elbow.
13:50So, technically, if you really kind of look at it from the bottom,
13:53it does kind of give you the idea that it should have a hinge,
13:55where a double hinge, one right here and one right here.
13:58But when you can see it from the front, it clearly looks like it's only more just a single hinge.
14:02Of course, we've already also looked at the fact that hands rotate all the way around.
14:05You can hinge those back and forth, too.
14:06It doesn't matter what you want to use.
14:07These hands or the other allotment of hands that they also throw in there in the box as well.
14:13As for his legs, let's just get everything situated here.
14:15We'll just kind of bring the arms around there.
14:17There we go.
14:18The legs do move forward.
14:20They also move back as well.
14:21You can hinge those out quite a lot.
14:23In fact, actually, with the way that they've established the ball joints inside the thighs,
14:27you can pull off almost a full Van Damme.
14:29I don't think a werewolf would ever really be pulling off a splits like this.
14:32But with your figure, you certainly can.
14:34There's a swivel there at the top of the thigh.
14:36Now, there's a hinge right here for the leg.
14:39So, again, depending on really how you guys want to have this guy posed,
14:41you don't have to have it fully extended, sort of the same way as a xenomorph.
14:45Some people don't generally like to have a xenomorph completely standing at attention like this.
14:49And you don't really have to do that either with the Howling's Werewolf.
14:52If you want to have it a little bit shortened, you can actually just bend the knee just a little bit
14:56and then kind of compensate it by bending the front of the knee or this front of the hind leg.
15:00You can also bend that further forward as well.
15:02So there's a swivel here.
15:04There's a swivel here.
15:05And then there's a hinge that allows this to bend forward as well.
15:08So, again, like if you want to have a little bit more of a lower pose for that,
15:11then you would be making use of the shorter post.
15:14If you want to have it fully extended, you want to use the longer post.
15:17And, again, it plugs in the exact same way.
15:19For the lower leg here or around the ankle area, there's a hinge right here.
15:24And this also swivels just a little bit as well.
15:26And there's also at the actual feet themselves,
15:28which I know we didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at the individual piggies,
15:31how many of these piggies went to the market?
15:33How many of these piggies just stayed home and devoured all the rest of the family?
15:36There's a swivel right here, so you can rotate these back and forth.
15:39And there's also a hinge there as well.
15:41Combine all that, there is actually a fair bit of possibility at play here
15:44when it comes to the werewolf.
15:45But, again, a lot of it does really require you using a display stand.
15:49On its own, you're not going to have the easiest time.
15:52In fact, I mean, even at the beginning of this video,
15:53when I brought in my tape measure,
15:55I couldn't tell you how many times that figure actually did fall over.
15:58In the way that you can kind of get him in a balancing pose,
16:00he does stand.
16:01But, again, like the promise of having this guy
16:03permanently displayed like this on the shelf,
16:05I wouldn't make that kind of promise
16:07because the guy's clearly going to fall over.
16:09Once again, bringing back in another example of the werewolf,
16:11here is what he looks like, again,
16:12with the Kessler werewolf from American Werewolf in London.
16:14Hey, hey, again, there's also Lon Chaney as the ultimate wolfman.
16:18Man, oh man, I love the design here of the howling werewolf.
16:21You know, again, there are a few little problems
16:23that kind of face this figure,
16:24sort of the same problems that also face a xenomorph,
16:27in the sense that there's a lot of posability,
16:29really, from, like, the waist down.
16:30And that additional posability causes then conflict for the figure to stand.
16:34But luckily, though, NECA's really started to kind of consider all that.
16:38They've done the same when it comes to the xenomorphs.
16:39They've also done the same.
16:40If I actually get the post, actually, in there.
16:42They've done also the same when it comes to the howling werewolf.
16:44There's, of course, the display stand.
16:46It consists of, really, again, three parts.
16:48Being that this is also, there goes the werewolf.
16:50Being that this is, again, like clear plastic,
16:52I couldn't help but again notice that I've got a little crack right there.
16:55I don't know if that came out of the packaging like that,
16:57or if that happened just with the few times that have actually attached the display post.
17:01Again, you've also got yourself the ball joint here that can be swapped around.
17:05But again, like, will that crack over time?
17:07I don't want to say, like, these are all things that could happen down the road,
17:09but these are all things, like, I can certainly have experienced in the past
17:13where clear plastic doesn't have the longevity to it.
17:16I mean, it kind of gives you more of the illusion of something that's not actually there
17:19rather than using the opaque plastic.
17:21But in the end, though, like, I would definitely encourage using a display stand with a howling werewolf.
17:26Simply just because he's not a figure that's going to stand well on his own.
17:28If I was the clock, the time that I've now spent with the werewolf, stop that, you guys.
17:32It's been a good maybe two and a half hours.
17:34And in that two and a half hours, I can tell you what's developed is more of a love for this figure.
17:38But unfortunately, you know what else has developed?
17:40Additional cracks in that clear base.
17:42That clear display base just isn't going to work well if you have to put pressure against it.
17:46And that's exactly what you need to do in order to get the post lodged in there.
17:50So you have to unfortunately put more pressure that's required into a centralized hole right smack dab in the middle of that display base.
17:58And now what would have started with one crack has now developed two.
18:02This probably will then continue.
18:05And I think that that crack has spread even further than it was when I first noticed it.
18:09It's a shame, though, that they have to use clear plastic.
18:12I know on the one end, clear plastic at least gives you more of that invisible look,
18:16especially if you're looking to prop a figure like this on your shelf.
18:19Unfortunately, the negatives that go with that is clear plastic, again, just doesn't take well to pressure.
18:24I don't think any of us really take well to pressure.
18:26And that kind of plastic is very known to cracking.
18:30Neck is not just responsible for using clear plastic for the display bases.
18:33There's been other companies as well, like Diamond Select.
18:35Diamond Select also had cracks that developed where you always have to put the adjustable neck into a small hole smack dab right in the middle of a display stand.
18:43If you can overlook cracks that will develop in the base, I think the rest of the figure that's attached to the base is fantastic.
18:50Love the look of the 1981 Howling Werewolf.
18:53Now, I'm choosing right now to go with the bloodied mouth.
18:55One of just the benefits of that is the fact that the mouth does have a hinge to it.
18:59The other two mouths don't have hinges on the other two heads.
19:01So, again, you can go with this head and just have the benefit of having two different looks.
19:05Or, again, you can just swap out the heads.
19:08I will say, though, like changing out the heads can be a little bit more difficult.
19:11I did show you guys in this review that you can also remove the fur collar pieces just to get a little bit more leverage to work it onto the ball joint.
19:18You can also, of course, use the trick of using hot water.
19:21You can also use a hairdryer.
19:22In the end, though, your end goal should really be to swap out the heads.
19:25It may work a little harder to do that.
19:27But in the end, you've got a pretty cool werewolf on display.
19:30Does he have a difficult time to stand?
19:32Yes, he does.
19:33But at least they include a display stand.
19:35I wish, though, in a perfect world the display stand didn't have to crack.
19:38But in the end, though, I'm not really going to be spending as much time looking at the display base.
19:41Again, I'm going to be looking at the werewolf that's attached onto it.
19:44What do you guys think of the Howling 1981 Werewolf?
19:47Pretty cool looking figure.
19:48Is this one that you guys, I'm sure, have already picked up?
19:50Or is this one definitely on your radar?
19:52If you guys did enjoy this video, you can do it as well and throw it a like.
19:55You guys want to stick around for more so?
19:57I hope so.
19:58I hope so.
19:59Because this isn't, by the way, I know, again, I always say this.
20:01This isn't the end of Spottober.
20:02There's many, many more videos coming your way for the many, many more days that are left of Spottober.
20:06So I hope you guys are going to be coming back with Ghoulish Peepers Peeled.
20:09As always, guys, thanks for watching.
20:11See you guys next time.
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