Ultimate Kessler Wolf (by NECA)

If you had to ask me what my favorite things are, I’d probably tell you dinosaurs, and other prehistoric animals first. Yet almost equally, I also adore werewolves, wolf men, and any flavor of lycanthrope. There’s many different cultural tales of men that could shapeshift into wolves or wolf like creatures (if not other animals), rather willingly or forced from a curse, spell, disease, etc. It shouldn’t be a surprise they make for a great horror and fantasy creature in many films, video games, other games, and even the collectors market as well. They’ve captivated me from when I was a young child, and were my favorite monster aside from dragons growing up. One of my all time favorite takes on a werewolf has to be from Universal’s 1981 award winning film American Werewolf in London directed by John Landis, and mainly starring David Naughton (who plays the tragic protagonist David Kessler), Griffin Dunne (as his friend Jack Goodman), and Jenny Agutter (as Alex price, David’s nurse, and later romantic interest).

The beast from the film is an exceptionally well designed creature, in both its practical effects work, and overall design (as well as the transformation scene effects work, which is tied into the creature’s form), thanks to Rick Baker and his team of folks bringing it to life. With Landis’ direction for a quadrupedal “four-legged hound from hell”, Baker referenced a dog’s skeleton, and took note of the homologous features between it and a human’s anatomy, and combined them for the horrific final merged result. There was also inspiration from Baker’s dog Bosco, a Keeshond, which is reflected in the werewolf’s thick and shaggy fur coat. More on the anatomy later.

Being one of the most iconic werewolf designs out there now, I definitely wanted a figure of it in my collection for a time. While there were various bits of merchandise for it over the years, it wasn’t until sometime in 2021 (the 40th anniversary of the film), that the subject of this review caught my eye. It was NECA’s Ultimate action figure of it. I have always primarily been an action figure collector, so I couldn’t have been more ecstatic when it was first announced, and I wasted no time pre-ordering it. After what felt like a long wait, it finally arrived to me in February 2022 from Big Bad Toy Store. Now that this whole Monster Toy Blog is a thing, I can finally give this wonderful beast a review I’ve been yearning to do for some time (in fact most of the pics here were taken as far back as February 2022).

For starters the figure is packaged in a beautiful box, with a flap covering the plastic window underneath where you can get a look at the figure. The front of it features beautiful artwork paying homage to the film, based on the intro to the film with David and Jack out on the Moors, with the beast blended into the clouds of the night sky, a taste of what’s to come. Inside the flap is one of NECA’s promotional images of the werewolf figure, which references the final scene of the movie, and the back and sides of the box feature a few more. I don’t have the packaging on hand any longer (in storage) so had to rely on some info from the net to get info on the sculptor, etc that I wanted to give proper due for. In fact I managed to find an image from ebay showing the bottom of the packaging which revealed the sculptor of this fine figure was Kyle Windrix, with paint work from Jon Wardell and Geoffrey Trapp. The packaging designer was Chris Raimo, and the artist responsible for that beautiful packaging illustration was Justin Osbourn. Other credits include True Cast Studios for the prototyping, Stephen Mazurek for the photography of the figure (or prototype), and Randy Falk and Stephen Folkins for the Direction and Development.

The figure is intended to be the beast that David Kessler eventually forcefully (and painfully) shape-shifts into, but it could also easily represent the one in the beginning of the movie that attacks David and Jack if one would like, or any other werewolf as desired. It also comes with two heads, a snarling closed mouth one, and a roaring (or howling) opened mouth one. I typically have mine displayed with the closed mouth, but every once in a while I swap it out to the other head to freshen things up. The heads can be popped off and replaced with a little brute force (or alternatively softening the plastic up with a hairdryer or hot water should do the trick too). While I usually like to have articulated jaws to fiddle around with, I’m actually relieved they didn’t go this route as it would have resulted in some sacrificing or alterations of the wonderfully accurate sculpt detail work. That said I wish they would have also included an alternate head based on the near final form, despite its very brief screen time (which you can get a look at the prop in this video, around the 1:30 mark, from Bob Burns Collection. Another look at in this video at the 1:40 mark).

The sculpt and paint work from the above mentioned folks is nearly spot on to the animatronic, costume, and prop work from Baker and his team. No inch of this figure has been spared in the detail work bringing this beast to life. The figure’s fur is wonderfully sculpted, with nearly every hair etched out, giving it a very rough texture to feel. The claws on each of the digits are appropriately sharp, though still feel like they could be safe for a child to handle with supervision and proper care (though it’s clearly intended for an older audience). Even the teeth on both head sculpts are done with great care, as far as including the molars on the closed mouth snarling head. Every aspect of the werewolf’s anatomy here was captured to great detail. Aside from the fur and heads, the transformed human turned wolf-like paw anatomy is represented pretty well here. There’s even some thick pads sculpted on the digits, and the paws bottoms. There’s even a stubby short tail, which while I initially thought was just an addition on the part of the sculptor when I first obtained the figure, doing some research shows there might be some basis for it after all. In fact I believe it can be seen in the transformation scene body puppet (such as in this behind the scenes image of it, or in this other video of Bob Burns collection, at the 3:50 mark), as well as the near final form’s prop (in the above linked videos).

Moving on to the paintwork, the figure is predominately a dark grey or black color with a dark brown wash to bring out the details on the fur, while the hairless skin of the face, ears, hands, and feet are colored in a lighter cool grey color. The teeth and claws are a yellow creamy color, and the gums and lips are covered in gloss, giving a nice wet look to the mouth. The alternate open mouth head has some red on the teeth and tongue that give it a bloody appearance, as if it was just interrupted in the middle of its feast on some poor victim. The eyes are golden yellow, with small black pupils nailing the feral look it sported in the film. One of the more notable features of the werewolf’s design (and also reflected in the later parts of the transformation sequence) is the lack of eyebrows, as wolves don’t have them. Comparing the promo pics to the original animatronic suggests what looks to be painted eyebrows on my particular figure (on both heads) was intended to be the skin overlaying the bulging brow ridge aiding the eyes in giving the werewolf that ferocious look. Unfortunately on my copy (and this goes for both heads), they appear to have been painted over in the same color as the brown wash, giving the beast the appearance of having angry eyebrows. I’m not sure how widespread this issue is, but I have seen a few others out there like this.

While a werewolf isn’t a real creature (and as a result should be open to any kind of interpretation), there is some rigorous adherence to both canine and human anatomy as mentioned earlier in this review, and it pays off. The ears are still somewhat human like in their overall shape and position, minus the length and pointing at the tips, similar to that of fantasy elf depictions. The snout is short and broad with a canine like nose at the tip. The nose and overall head is wide (hence the space between the eyes), but the forehead is short, like that of a wolf. There is an overall count of 32 teeth, give or take, like a typical adult human, but the number of incisors and molars (and/or premolars) differs. Wolves typically have 42 teeth in comparison. Like wolves there is a total of three pairs of incisors (12 teeth total) per jaw, compared to the two pairs in humans (8 teeth), in addition to the large canines (or fangs). Alternatively there could be two pairs of incisors, and two pairs of canines, one of those being the oversized pair, and the other being the original human pair. Based on some behind the scenes info, the alternative might have been intended to be the case based on an unused transformation scene effects prop, but I’m not totally certain, so I decided to present both possibilities, and leave it for the reader to decide what they think is the more likely interpretation. There appear to be four pairs of molars (and/or premolars) on the top jaw, with about four or five pairs on the bottom jaw, for a total of 16-18 teeth. This seems to be in line with the animatronic (see the decayed, pre-restoration images for reference). For comparison, humans typically have 2 pairs of premolars (8 teeth), and about 3 pairs of molars (12 teeth, assuming wisdom teeth, or the third pair have not been removed), while wolves typically have 4 pairs of premolars on the top and bottom jaw (16 teeth), two pairs of molars on the top jaw (4 teeth), and three on the bottom (6 teeth). Wolves also have large carnassial teeth (top premolar set four, bottom molar set one), used for shearing flesh, which I don’t really see replicated here (or in the animatronic).

The shoulders and back are hunched upwards, large and wide, and the torso has additional length to it compared to a human’s shorter torso (possibly from an increase in the number of thoracic and lumbar vertebrae as wolves have a few more then humans do), and the ribs or chest area appear to be deeper (aside from the fur drooping downwards off of it). The arms and legs still seem mostly proportionally human, but the hands and feet have far longer metacarpus and metatarsus, or hand and foot bones (in addition to what would be tendons, tissue, skin, etc), giving way to a quadrupedal digitigrade stance. There’s no carpal pads present. The digits on the fore paws are shorter, and appear to have a reduced number of phalanges (digit bones), with two present in addition to the claws, like on a wolf, versus the three per digit of a human hand (minus the thumb which has two, which appears to be present on this figure’s anatomy too). The feet are interesting in that the first digit is much higher, closer to the ankle, and far smaller then the rest of the toes. I’m not sure what the inspiration or basis for that is though. The shape and spread of the digits on the fore paws and hind paws deviates from that of wolves. The position of the stubby tail would suggest the position of the sacrum and coccyx (parts of the pelvis and tail bone) has shifted around to form the tail.

As an action figure, there is lots of articulation here. There is limited articulation at the head, with a little up and down, and side to side movement, which seems hindered by the fur collar piece on the neck, though it can twist any which way around. The shoulders can be rotated around fully and can be positioned in and out. There is a hinge at the elbows that allows forward and back movement, and they can be rotated around as well. The wrists can move up and down, and can also be rotated, but the joints were pretty stiff on mine. The fore paws are also on a similar joint, although can only be moved up and down. Like the shoulders, the legs can be rotated fully around, and moved in and out. The knees are similar to the elbows but perhaps more limited in how far they can pull in due to the leg’s fur. The ankle joints have about the same range of movement as the wrists do. The hind paws have similar joints to the fore paws, only able to move up and down. There is a small hole in the bottom of the right hind paw, perhaps for a stand (although none were included). There’s also a mid torso or waist joint to allow some movement. One of my favorite poses for this guy is to have it laying down like a resting wolf or dog. It’s also partly of necessity of not straining the joints too much. While they were pretty tight on day one, the elbow joints are a little looser on my figure now from messing around with it. In addition the figure is pretty dang top heavy from the thick chest fur and bulky torso. I’d really recommend getting a stand of sorts to help support this guy in standing poses long term. A stand would also provide support for attacking and lunging poses.

I’d really recommend picking this figure up sooner then later, if one is yet to pick one up for their collection. Might be able to pick it up from ebay or elsewhere that might still have it in stock. I think it retailed around 50 bucks back in the day. NECA has released numerous other figures based on the film, including a set with backpacking David and Jack just last year. They also have another werewolf figure releasing later this year from the other 1981 werewolf film, The Howling (Syndicate Collectibles has also just released a figure out of it too, for what it’s worth). It has been no better time then to be a collector of werewolves, wolf men, and werewolf like creatures with both of these well received films finally getting their due on the market, not only from NECA, but also a plethora of others in recent years from the likes of Maestro Union, Coo Models, and Loosecollector, and even Jakks Pacific.