That's not completely fair of course. The couple times I've met Rob at Comic Cons he's been nothing short of a nice, friendly guy. But don't spread that around too much, because he has an image to uphold.

His second film, The Devil's Rejects, is sort of a sequel, kind of, to his first film, House of a 1000 Corpses. The reviews have gone from "This is a terrible movie and it's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen" to "This is a fantastic movie and it's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen". If you're on the fence about seeing it, you might want to check out Roger Ebert's review.

Rob's movie creations have had quite a sordid history with the world of plastic. First, the Stevenson Entertainment Group took a shot at figures for House of a 1000 Corpses. These figures of Baby, Otis, The Professor and Spaulding were disgusting as well, but not in a good way. Then Rob hooked up with NECA, and they took their own shot at Otis, Baby and Spaulding. This line was a huge improvement, and NECA also did a couple exclusive versions of Spaulding, one of which I reviewed here at Poop Shoot, along with some of the other figures.

Now NECA is doing figures based on the new film, including Spaulding, Otis, Baby and Tiny. The first stores to get these in was Hot Topic, but you can also find them at a number of online retailers, and I have some suggestions at the end of the review. Expect to pay in the $12 - $14 range depending on the retailer.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can always reach me at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you enjoy this review, take a minute to check out my other site at Michael's Review of the Week, and let me know what you think. Now on to the review!

"The Devil's Rejects - Captain Spaulding"

I'm only reviewing the good captain tonight, but if I had to rank the others I'd put Tiny at the top, with Otis similar to Spaulding, and Baby pulling up the rear. Baby is played on screen by Rob's wife, Sheri Moon, and as you might expect of the spouse of a rock star, she's a babe. It's too bad no one has really done her justice in action figure form.

Packaging - ***
NECA goes with clamshells, and that makes me happy. Now some folks hate them, because they require a sharp instrument and a little manual dexterity to open. But if you can manage putting on your own pants, you should be able to get these open without a trip to the emergency room.

The colors are dusty and earthy, designed after the film, and fit the mood quite well. There's some useful descriptive text, and the package is both sturdy and relatively small.

Sculpting - ***
While there's no doubt this is Sid Haig, the actor that plays Spaulding, it's not quite as interesting or exciting of a head sculpt as the past NECA work. This is largely due to a less emotional expression, which gives him a little less personality. This guy could be your Uncle Milt.

However, the head sculpt is still, on it's own, a good **1/2 star sculpt. As I said, there's no doubt who it is, and the fine detail work on the beard and wrinkles is amazing, particularly at this scale.

The body sculpt is what pulls him down another half star. The pose is has him in half stride, and he has a little trouble standing on his own. Regular readers know it drives me nuts when figures don't stand well on their own. It's not a huge issue here - you'll be able to play around with him enough to get him to stand for at least short periods - but it still drives me nuts.

The detail work and realism of the body sculpt aren't issues, and the proportions of the torso, legs, arms, and head are all great. There's no problems with the biceps being flat on the inside or too skinny up near the shoulder joint, and the hands are sculpted to work nicely with the accessories.

I do have one other problem though, and that's with the odd cut line over the top of the right leg and down part of the inseam. When I saw it in the package, I assumed the leg could move at this point. But that's not the case, and it must have been done to save money on molding. However, it's extremely obvious and hurts the overall look of the figure.

Scale is similar to the rest of the NECA recent work, in the 7" neighborhood. He's slightly taller than the previoius Spaulding though, perhaps due to the thicker soles of the work boots he's wearing.

Paint - ***1/2
The paint ops on this figure show some amazing attention to detail, especially on the funky retro striped pants. They aren't perfect, but they are well above the average.

Other details are here as well, like the forearm tats sticking out from under the sleeves of his henley, and the 'love' and 'hate' on his hands. The beard is a gray with white dry brushing, which works as well as can be expected.

I do have one issue with the paint, but it's not related to details. It's is the skin tone. Now, Spaulding is the kind of guy who's probably out in the sun a lot, particularly in the second film, but what's with the tan? It looks like it came right out of a bottle. The tone is just too...orangey, especially on the face.

I'm betting some folks will complain about the darker wash used on the white shirt, since that seems to be a fairly regular complaint against NECA. This time it works fine though, since most white shirts like this get dingy gray pretty quick, especially with all that killing and beating and maiming. It's not overdone, and gives a nice false shadowing to the detailed sculpt.

Articulation - **1/2
There are a number of points of articulation here, but most won't do you a lot of good. This score almost lost another half star, but they did include that one special joint that means so much - the ball jointed neck.

The range of motion is pretty good on the neck as well, and you can add some personality to Spaulding with it. He also has ball jointed shoulders, cut biceps, cut wrists, and cut ankles.

The ankles are pretty much worthless due to the restrictive sculpt, and the hands have a nasty habit of popping off at the wrists. No matter how much I tried, I also always ended up with a gap at that joint. You can swap over hands from other Spauldings though if you'd like.

The arm articulation is fairly limted as well, and he really needed pin elbows to do much. He looks fine in one or two poses, but don't expect too much in this category.

Accessories - ***
Spaulding has two guns, both of which he can hold. There's the revolver which also fits in his shoulder holster, and his shotgun. If I were merely going on quantity of accessories, the score would have been lower, but the quality here helps counter the small number.

The sculpt and paint on the revolver are good, but the standout is the shotgun. It looks like a Remington semi-auto to me, and even has some very nice detail work on the stock and side.

Fun Factor - *
Even if you were sick enough to give this to a kid to play with, I doubt they'd have much interest. Without seeing the film, he's just a pudgy, bald, middle aged man with a half ass Santa beard. Perhaps he's make a good henchman, backing up someone a little more interesting in your kid's arsenal of bad guys.

Value - **
Hot Topic tends to be too expensive, and this time that is certainly true. I'm grading this on buying it there, but if you can pick it up closer to $11 or $12 tops, you can add another half star to this score.

Overall - ***
I recently saw Sid Haig at the San Diego Comic Con. He has his own booth, and everytime I passed, a variety of new hot goth chicks were hanging off of him. I'm sure he wishes he was twenty again, but it didn't look like he was too sad.

For big fans of the films, of which there are plenty, these figures will do fine. They aren't NECA's very best work, but the sculpts are solid. If you're wondering about more than just Spaulding, I'd put the Otis figure on par with him, and Tiny would be the winner of the bunch. Once again, poor Baby got the short end of the stick, and it was the ugly stick. She's a million times better than the SEG try, but still not a great rendition.

Where to Buy -
I picked him up at the local Media Play for $14. Online options include:

- Killer Toyshas the complete set of four figures for $45.

- CornerStoreComics has the set for $47, or the individual figures for $12 each. They also have some of series one from the House of 1000 Corpses still available.

- Oh My God, Cheap New Figures Online has the individual figures for just $11 each.

- Amazing Toyz only has a handful left at $12 each.

Related Links -
I've done a number of reviews of past figures:

- there have been several guest reviews of earlier figures at my site, including the Suncoast exclusive Captain Spaulding from NECA, the first series of figures for House of 1000 Corpses from NECA, and the awful first series of House of 1000 Corpses figures from SEG.

- right here at da Poop, I reviewed several of the NECA House of 1000 Corpses figures as well, including an exclusive Spaulding.

- there's also the official site of Rob Zombie, if you're looking for more info on past and upcoming projects.

- and let's not forget Sid Haig, who has his own site as well.