Series: Movie Maniacs 5, Legend

Craftsmanship: 8.7 / 10

- Great looking figure with loads of detail

- A bitch to keep standing

- Some articulation but mostly useless

Playability: 2.0 / 10

- You could take out an eye with those horns

- Practically immobile

- Not a kid character

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Lord of Darkness (Movie Maniacs) by McFarlane Toys

lord of darkness

The 5th Movie Maniacs series may not be the most horrific line-up ever but there’s no denying that the high detail and attention to subtle nuances that McFarlane it known for is still front and center. Besides the Alien vs. Predator set, Lord of

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Darkness is the best one of the bunch.

Like nearly every other MM figure, Lord's default position is looking to the left. (I’ve always puzzled over this quirk of the MM figures.) He “stands” about 8” tall and looks just great. I put “stands” in quotation marks because he doesn’t stand well at all. His hooves just don’t have

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enough surface area to give him stability. Top it off with loose ankle articulation and you have a reason to reach for the Tylenol. Some of this can be offset by installing him on a base since he does come with holes in the bottom of each foot. The sweeping cape does add some stability but it’s only a band-aid solution – he still falls over way to easily.

Depending on how packed your display shelves are, Lord of Darkness can turn into the Lord of Action Figure Dominoes. After a couple times of having him take out half the figures on a shelf, I highly recommend propping him against something or displaying him by himself.

The sculpt and detail matches McFarlane’s high standards (and totally matches the movie counterpart), but where Lord of Darkness suffers is in the articulation department. He does have a good number of articulation points – 14, I think – but only the neck joint provides any really drastic changes. The main culprit is the wicked-looking cape, which essentially binds his arms into the position they’re in. His hips are ball-jointed for some reason – they definitely don’t help keep him standing. I think McFarlane should have immobilized his lower half (like Jason X).

In terms of paint, the application is very good – without oversplash, overspray or hidden Satanic messages.

So you’d like to play with Lord of Darkness? Make sure you’ve got your protective eyewear on. I’m not kidding – those horns could take out both your eyes in one shot. Danger aside, there’s not much play value unless you need a really great villain. The unicorn horn can quite easily be lost but his sword (that only fits in his right hand) is harder to lose because it fits so snuggly. The knob snaps off to allow the sword to slide into his hand, so although you might lose the knob, the sword won’t be affected by it. His hardly-there articulation is the biggest downfall though. It’s not much fun to play with a virtual statue.

Although Lord of Darkness doesn’t light up the land of Play, he’s certainly a good display piece even though his articulation hampers different poses and can be difficult to free-stand.

- Omni
(November 15, 2002)