House of 1000 Corpses – Captain Spaulding Retro Figure by NECA

House of 1000 Corpses – Captain Spaulding Retro Figure by NECA

Rob Zombie movies suck, but that head sculpt is sweet. OK NECA, do Galaxy of Terror figures next.

What an odd time to release this. Is there some kind of HO1KC event happening this year?

They're testing the waters to see if the market can sustain horror mego figures outside of the bigger ones like Freddy, Leatherface & Jason.

Really? I was on the fence about buying the Spaulding figure (the first HO1KC movie is decent) but if that's the case I'll totally support this if it means we might get more niche horror characters down the line.

lol.

This and Chop Top will be big tests for them. Snake Plissken was a huge test for more cult stuff, and that didn't do so hot.

Seriously? That Snake figure was great (I have it myself) and it didn't sell well? Shit. Was that the end of the cult stuff experiment, or are more tests coming?

And if Chop Top is a horror test, that has me worried. I know Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 has its fans, but overall it's not a popular film. At all. There are plenty of Sid Haig/Spaulding fans out there, but if Snake didn't sell there's no way Chop Top will.

Still, I have to applaud NECA for occasionally going out on a limb to test unusual ideas for their fans. I hope it works out. I'd love to see a mego Herbert West figure from them, as the announced 7-inch Re-Animator figures by Amok Time appear to be trapped forever in development hell.

Snake didn't really do well at all. I still see him randomly at Toys "R" Us and FYE. Plus, Snake's poor sales killed any chance of a 7" version. They were using the Mego version (which is much cheaper to produce) to gauge interest in the property.

Other cult/classic licenses they tried were Rocky, which I still see in stores and Planet of the Apes Megos, which are still super easy to find in stores. The apes failure as a whole has put them off a lot of older licenses in general.

It's a shame too. There are a ton of classic properties that would make for good Mego style figure. The Warriors, Clash of the Titans, Tron, Dawn of the Dead.

It's also sad because it was pretty apparent that some of the folks at NECA, including Randy, are PotA fans and genuinely wanted the line to take off more than it did. I salute them for giving it a shot though.

I would have been all in on the POTA line, honestly, if they would have done or committed to do a Taylor in the 7" scale. I liked what they did with that line, but Taylor is one of my favorite parts of the 1st film, and without him, it would never feel like a complete line.

How did the Taylor mego sell?

Poorly I believe. Still available in stores. I see it every time I go to FYE.

My area still has 'em floating around. Megos aren't popular in my area at all I guess since even the surprise TRU video game color Jason and Freddy didn't move with much haste.

Damn shame. I love me some Megos, most fans seem put off by them--I guess the scale not fitting in anywhere in their collections or something. Snake was great, so was Taylor. I will defo get me a Chop Top even though I don't have an 8" Leatherface, but I don't know if I can support a Captain Spaulding no matter how much I like Sid Haig or NECA. I just hated that movie too much. A TDR version might be slightly less unacceptable.

The POTA line failure is massively disheartening, especially compared with the success of Pacific Rim figures--can this movie really have that many fans or do people just think the toys are totally rad?? It seems like a totally generic and unexciting property to me, but then again I don't see the point of collecting fifty slightly different Predators either so maybe this newfangled stuff the kids are into is just lost on me. I never got the con exclusive apes but every other one in the series and the Lawgiver statue were home runs in my book.

Some sell well around here. The Freddy's & Jason's sell out almost immediately. All the Maiden Eddie ones (except 2 Minuted to Midnight) sold really well. Apron Leatherface sold out, but dinner Leatherface is still floating around. Home Alone came and went in a blink.

Maybe it just boils down to which properties are more popular, but I have trouble wrapping my head around POTA going sideways like it did. Maybe it's just the age group of adult men that are into collectible figures doesn't line up with the age group of classic POTA fans.

I feel like if they just came out with a 7" Snake that would have done pretty well. Maybe I'm wrong.

I feel that way too. I don't care how well it might have done I would have gotten one and everybody who got the mego version would've gotten one. It's one of those things you like to imagine but can't really know for sure whether or not it would have actually sold better than the mego did.

I'm sure a lot of people skipped the Snake mego simply because they don't care for the format and not due to a lack of interest in the character. I'm not sure using mego sales to gauge interest in a 7" figure down the road is the most effective way to go about this.

Personally, I'm fine with the mego format, but I do prefer the 7-inch figures more. But if any character I'm a big fan of, such as Snake Plissken, comes out in the mego format, I'll certainly pick it up regardless. The Snake mego is amazingly well done.

I, personally, don't care for the MEGO style, but I've finally broken down and accepted that may be the only way to get certain properties, like Weird Al. For me, there's no reason to buy a MEGO Freddy Krueger or Jason, because of the killer 7" ones. I'm still on the fence about Chop Top, but HOTC and TDR are two of my favourite movies ever, so I'll definitely be getting Spaulding and whomever else they release.

Also, I haven't completely come to terms with the fact that the retro figures cost way less to produce, yet are priced higher than the 7".

They cost more because they are bigger than NECA's standard 7" figures but they have lower production costs because they all share the same body. If NECA wanted to make a new 7" dinner jacket Leatherface it would be a completely new figure built up from the ground, the Mego format only needed a head, hands, and some clothes.

I LOVE the mego Jasons. They're adorable.

I get all that. I would be more apt to buy a 7" figure from NECA, with their great quality, sculpts, paint apps, etc for $30, as I'd see it justified. If the MEGO's were say, $15-$20, I'd probably have them all. Mind you, I'm not complaining about the 7" price point. AT ALL. The fact Randy and the gang can pull that off is magnificent. But, the retros are an easy pass for me, in most cases, mostly because of the price.

Agreed, with all the details them only being the same price as a Hasbro 6" figure or even just under that is awesome.

With megos I feel like it's both the price and the finished look not always sitting right with me. The Hateful 8 figures I think work great as megos and some others work right as well like the Interstellar pack but then too many have the doll clothing effect where it's all poofy and bellowing. My go to is Leatherface where looking at both the ultimate and mego side by side the ult actually looks like what we saw in the movie but the mego looks like a toy-doll of what we saw. They're good products for being modern mego style figures but they're far from my cup of tea.