Let's find out if this toy sucks!
Guaranteed to horrify... the blood sucking samurai!
Behold the immortal master who reigns in blood!
Fear the undead Shredhead!
Crimson creature of the night!
With fangs of steel the horror is real!
Rising from his coffin to dine on turtle soup!
He'll rip you to shreds!
Man, I've missed these bombastic back-of-the-box quotes. It's only been a year since the last toy came out, but it feels longer, doesn't it? NECA always has these huge gaps in their release schedule that make you question whether they still have a given license or not.
This is definitely a groundbreaking release.
We've had NECA UMxTMNT figures that strayed away from what Playmates did in the '90s before, and we've even had characters in this line that never appeared in that one. But Shredder is the first villain to appear in either incarnation! It's awfully nice that NECA saved such an important monster for him to be, huh? (Playmates' Dracula was in their first series, and he was Donatello.)
Not since The Phantom of the Casey has one of these figures come with so many alternate heads! Right out of the tray we see his human head, with its pale white skin and slicked-back hair. Since these are technically crossovers involving the 1990 movie, he has bloody scratches on his cheek - though the sculpt doesn't really look very much like either
James Saito or the nameless mystery man.
The alternate heads both show him wearing his Shredder helmet. The first could be a standard samurai helmet, like he typically wears, though the men-yoroi mask is a new style: it has large, sculpted fangs, like he's trying to intimidate a foe. The overall shape of the helmet has a very chiropteran feel to it (especially with the flaps on the sides of the face looking a bit like wings), tying him back in with the stated "vampire" theme he's supposed to have.
And then the third head takes things even further. It's even more bat-like than the first, with distinct "ears," and the mask sculpted with an up-turned nose and open mouth to show off fangs. The head inside this helmet is fully black, with glowing red eyes. Dang! So does his helmet actually change shape due to his vampiric powers, or does he take the time to stop and change hats when he wants to be extra scary?
To be honest, this isn't one of the stronger crossover figures in this line. Shredder is just a plain human, and Dracula is mostly a plain human-shaped dude in fancy clothes, so they were already starting
from a weak place, but then we've got this costume that doesn't look like Universal's Dracula much at all. The idea seems to have been to attempt to suggest Shredder's ninja uniform, since he's wearing what looks like an open robe and has a large rope tied around his metal belt, but it just doesn't say "Shredder." Or "Dracula." It definitely says "vampire," but non-specifically. On the plus side, the armor on his ahoulders, forearms, and lower legs has a wavy, ribbed design that can't help but call to mind Gary Oldman's red muscle suit. He's wearing a smooth breastplate under his robe, and it has a large, ornate symbol in the center - a reference to Drac's medallion, maybe? This is the second vampire in a row we've reviewd that was sculpted by mysterious Wallachian recluse Paul Harding; we could probably ask him what the inspiration was.
The articulation is unsurprising: barbell head, balljoint neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, double-swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge
wrists, balljoint waist, balljoint hips, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge upper knees, regular hinged lower knee, swivel ankles, and swivel/hinge feet. That seems like more swivels than we need in the legs, doesn't it? There's at least one that's superfluous, maybe two. But, better to have it and not want it than want it and not have it. One of the ankles was stuck on my figure, due to the heat, but a little stretching got it free. He wears a softgoods cape that doesn't block anything at all, and the figure has alternate hands for holding accessories - in the tradition of Movie Shredder, he has blades on the back of his left hand, but not his right.
For accessories, he has spear (perfect for impaling, as the Dracula do), two dead rats (one black, one brown), what NECA's promotional copy describes as "a juice jug," a turtle skull, and a turtle with a candle on its back. Uh, sure. Really feels like some of these are just leftovers that didn't cost out with other figures. Like, the walking candle, for instance: shouldn't that have been with one of the Mummy releases?
The big surprise of this figure is
that there are secretly three versions. The one in this review, with the black clothes, white skin, and red accents on the armor, is the standard (because that's all that's showed up so far). But Target is getting a version that's more crimson/maroon, like Shredder's movie costume, and Walmart is getting a version that has blue skin and makes the clothing even more black with golden accents. I'm not sure if I have a favorite among them; what about you? The Daniel Horne art on the front of the boxes gets approproately recolored to match the figure inside, too.
This figure was hinted at years ago, when Splinter Van Helsing was described as "Master of ninjutsu! Hunter of vampires! Slayer of Shredder!" on the back of his packaging. It could have just been a reference to him throwing Shredder off the roof in the movie, but now with Shredder being Dracula, it means much more. Shredderacula is not one of the stronger offerings in this line, making even Gill-man Leonardo look more interesting by comparison. And yet, we do hope this isn't the last figure in this crossover line. It's been a lot of fun, but it's hard to see where they'd go from here.
-- 06/26/25
Which color version do you like best? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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