NECA: Puppet Master Blade and Torch Two-Pack Review

We’ve got two more entries into the Puppet Master collection with yet another two-pack of tiny tiny toys.

The Puppet Master series exists to set up some hapless fools for the puppets to kill. It’s standard MO for every horror movie out there, but extra creepy since puppets are extra creepy. The names this time telegraph their methods of murder quite clearly. Blade is the knife one, with a knife that knives people, and Torch is the fire guy who torches people.

Torches them to death.

The designs of the puppets were fantastic, and that designwork carries through into some pretty fantastic looking figures, even at such a small scale. These things just look deadly and evil. And like they could walk around on their own. Because it just ain’t right when puppets do that.

Blade is a slender fella with a blade for his right hand and a hook for his left.  He wasn’t satisfied with just one way of killing people. No, hook them, gut them, slice and stab and grab and…yeah, even his eyes are knives.

Even his eyes are knives, you guys. That’s the kind of movie series this is, and it’s awesome.

Talk about sharp eyesight.

Blade is wearing a tiny little trenchcoat and a fedora, which means he could quite possibly “milady” someone to death. The articulation on these little guys is quite good for what size they are. The bottom of the trenchcoat does impede his legs, but he still has single jointed swivel-hinge knees with ball jointed hips. There is some motion there but the coat will inhibit extreme poses.

He has the same type of articulation in the arms. The neck is a ball joint, and it allows him to get pretty wide range all around. There’s a ball joint at the waist that allows him to twist and crouch. Which is not a golden oldie song, but should be.

Blade comes with an alternate bloodied blade and an alternate bloodied head with the blade eyes popping out. That will be my default head, because how could it not?

Torch has bullets for teeth and that says so much about so much. He’s another where the jacket impedes the leg articulation some, but it doesn’t hang as far down as Blade’s, so you get a bit more range. He has single jointed knees with actual ball jointed hips, so he has more expressiveness there. The arms are that NECA style of wide double joint, which allows a pretty good range of motion. He also has a ball joint at the waist and a pretty good neck joint, although his head is a bit larger and gets in its own way.

As a bonus, the jaw opens and closes. The paintwork on the bullets and the eyes and the metal of his helmet is all quite nice. There’s paint on the buttons and the belt and such of his jacket too. Nice details.

Torch only comes with a plug-in flame effect for his right blowtorch hand. It’s partially painted but also has a slight translucence to it so light will really perk it up.

I love building this particular collection and while we haven’t heard anything about further additions to the line, hopefully this isn’t the end. There are still a handful of puppets needed to have a properly filled out Puppet Master collection. It’s an unexpected but pretty great looking line.