Sitting here, scouring the internet for random oddities, our minds tend to wander. We we’re just thinking how we sure could use a little more Frankenstein in our lives and sure enough our friends at Diamond Select Toys are releasing the Universal Monsters as highly detailed action figures! The classic horror icons will be shipping in both regular and Toys R’ Us-Exclusive editions, with the TRU versions appearing to be the same-- minus the larger display bases and extras. These look to be around the same scale as DST's awesome Marvel Select figures (with less articulation), so looks like it's about time for Dracula to face off against the Juggernaut, don't you think?

Oh, and don’t worry about missing out since these (blood)suckers are going to be available in plenty of time for Halloween!

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Tags Action Figures, Bride of Frankenstein, Diamond Select Toys, Dracula, Frankenstein, mtv, MTV Geek, Preview, Toys R Us, Universal Monsters

Screamland is back for a second series through Image Comics. The pitch, if you haven’t heard it, envisions a world where classic movie monsters—think Frankenstein’s Monster, the wolfman, Dracula—were not only real but celebrities in film. Now what if each of them was well past their sell-by date in the popular consciousness? What would their lives be like?

Co-writers Harold Sipe and Christopher Sebela are currently in the midst of their second arc, moving beyond the murder mystery at the heart of the first series and into the wider world of washed up horror icons. The new series hits on June 8th, and Mssrs. Sipe and Sebela were kind enough to tell us about what they have in store for their monstrous cast in the current volume.

MTV Geek: So much of the series is about the characters’ reactions to the changing horror landscape. Could you walk us through some of the ways modern horror has screwed up classic monsters?

Harold Sipe: I wouldn’t say screwing them up so much as completely leaving them behind. What was the last monster flick? It’s like the face of modern horror is all sparkling teenaged vampires, zombies or torture porn psychos. Chris is a bit more dialed into modern horror but I kinda got off the bus after the first Nightmare on Elm Street flick. That was the last one I really enjoyed for the most part.

I think the whole of horror flicks used to have a lot more class. That is my overall reaction that finds its way into Screamland. I think most of the characters and I are on the same page on this.

Christopher Sebela: Mostly modern horror doesn't care about classic monsters at all, except maybe to use them to point out how much scarier things are now. It's hard to be terrified of a lumbering guy stitched together from dead bodies when the alternatives are the entire world dead and wanting to eat your brains, a ghost girl crawling out of your TV for revenge or the lady in front of you at the grocery store kidnapping and torturing people in her basement for kicks. In Screamland, that is the killing blow to the classic monsters' egos. Most of them are just angry and/or depressed that no one finds them scary anymore.

But I think modern horror is justified in its move away from the classic monsters. They're classic for a reason. The same way that Elvis Presley's “Hound Dog” isn't quite the world-burner it was when it debuted, a dead guy wrapped in bandages with a little fez isn't quite the terrifying specter it used to be when we've lived through decades of nukes, holocausts and yearly threat of extinction of life as we know it.

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Tags Christopher Sebela, Comics, Harold Sipe, Image Comics, Screamland

It’s that time of the year again – Spring! Of course, as you all know nothing says “springtime” like zombies! Thanks to our friends over at Mezco Toyz, your head can be filled with horrific images of small children, reanimated and tearing their way through the gray-matter of the local townsfolk! Series 22 (!) of Mezco’s infamous Living Dead Dolls has a zombie theme and we’re happy to say that they look to be creepier than ever. Don’t rush out to the stores just yet, as this set won’t start shipping until September of this year. The press release below explains it all in full, brain-devouring detail:

Mezco Releases New Zombie Living Dead Doll Image!

We are happy to unveil the dolls that make up Living Dead Dolls Series 22. Their names are (clockwise from the top):

- Goria
- Menard
- Roxie
- Ava
- Peggy Goo

When there is no more room in hell, dolls will walk the Earth. The 22nd series of the Living Dead Dolls, pays tribute to the creatures that first inspired the creators more than a decade ago: Zombies!

Five rotting corpses, freshly reanimated, shuffle forth from their tombs and into the night. They search for brains…try to be open minded!

Set of 5, each individually packaged in their own coffin…for now.

Ships in September 2011

Available for pre-order at finer retailers or at http://www.mezcotoyz.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=941

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Tags LDD series 22, Living Dead Dolls, Mezco Toyz, Toys, zombies

Horror maestro Clive Barker is set to roll out a new installment in his long-living, leather-loving, Cenobite-tastic series, Hellraiser, with BOOM! Studios. Along with co-writer Christopher Monfette and artist, Leonardo Manco, Barker will release the new ongoing series beginning in March with Hellraiser #1.

Along with Hellraiser #1 BOOM! is reissuing Pinhead's early Marvel Comics fetishistic and torturing adventures in the collection, Hellraiser: Masterworks Vol. 1 featuring work by Barker himself, Neil Gaiman, Mike Mignola, Alex Ross and Larry Wachowski.

Hellraiser #1 will feature cover work by Tim Bradstreet and Nick Percival as well as special 1-in-50 variants signed by Barker. Read more...

Tags Boom Studios, Christopher Monfette, Clive Barker, Hellraiser, Hellraiser: Masterworks Vol. 1, Larry Wachowski, Marvel Comics, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, Nick Percival, Pinhead, TIM BRADSTREET

Title: The Walking Dead #79
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Charlie Adlard
Colors: Cliff Rathburn, gray tones and cover colors
Publisher: Image Comics

Following the events of last month’s installment, this issue of The Walking Dead is mostly clean-up in the aftermath of the attack on the Community by a gang of desperate bandits. With everyone pretty much safe and sound, Kirkman focuses on the idea of security this month, with several characters attempting to sort out what it means to be safe in this new world.

The basic idea of this community, where Rick and his band of survivors have made their new home, is mutual safety through cooperation, where everyone pulls their weight and everyone has a role. It’s full of nice people who just want to live in peace, and that’s the problem for some members of Kirkman’s ever-expanding and contracting cast: the Community isn’t much different from the prison where Rick and his crew camped out or any of the other settlement attempts in the series. They’re all doomed eventually, and some of the characters see this. Read more...

Tags Charles Adlard, Comic Books, Image Comics, Robert Kirkman, Walking Dead

Just when you thought the zombie genre had shambled its way into the sunset, AMC had to go and unleash the dead again in the form of an epic, television adaptation of Robert Kirkman's Image Comics series, The Walking Dead. Now, we have a feeling in our, not-yet-gutted-by-hundreds-of-reanimated-corpses guts, that the genre will continue to roam and roam and eat and roam and moan and roam some more until some badass comes along and pops it in the brain to make room for the next horror convention that'll dominate our favorite media.

But until then (which ain't happening anytime soon), BOOM! Studios has been going strong with the comic sequel/prequel of the last source of undead-interest-rekindling, 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later...yes we know, the bad guys and gals in these stories aren't technically dead or zombies or shambling or anything like that...but go with it here, man. 28 Days/Weeks Later tells the story of a rage-inducing virus that spreads far and wide, turning its victims into rage-filled, rage-aholics, who rage across London and beyond. The films were violent, scary, intense and pushed the genre into new and exciting territories. Read more...

Tags 28 DAYS LATER, 28 Weeks Later, AMC, Danny Boyle, The Walking Dead, zombies

Since 2004, Cassie Hack has been going to toe-to-toe (or bat-to-machete) with the evilest, most brutal of horror movie slashers both classic and created. From demented doll, Chucky to Re-Animator's Herbert West. Tim Seely, the writer and artist behind Hack/Slash has plunged his "final girl" Cassie and her "gentle giant" partner, Vlad into the craziest, bloodiest and most fun scenarios in horror comics today.

The seeds of the series were planted while Seely was sick in bed around Halloween and found himself watching horror movie marathon after horror movie marathon. "There's a world here. It all takes place in the same place and they all have the same rules," he realized. "It kind of just became the universe of the horror movie sequel was just one place, and here's this girl and her friend who walk around in it." Read more...

Tags Cassie Hack. Tim Seely, Hack/Slash, Image Comics, New York Comic Con

This weekend brings Halloween in full force... on a Sunday. Sucks, right? Practically everybody is gonna be celebrating on Saturday night instead, and getting embarrassingly drunk while wearing a Batman costume, just isn't gonna have the same air of importance.  However, scary s@#t is fun all year round, and we here at MTV Geek! are happy to present the Top Ten Scariest Action Figures of All Time!

Most of the toys featured have been long sold out (or burned by angry mobs), and these plastic effigies may induce vomiting, spark hallucinations, and/or cause involuntary urination; so, if you can find them, it'll be like the tail-end of a Halloween party all year round!  Without further ado, lets bring on the freaks! Read more...

Tags Attack of the Living Dead, Bioshock, Blackest Night, Clive Barker's Tortured Souls, DC Direct, McFarlane Toys, Mezco Toyz, Michael Myers, Neca Toys, Nosferatu, Silent Screamers, The Evolution of Evil, The Exorcist, The Sinestro Corps, Twisted Fairy Tales

Press Release

Are you excited about The Walking Dead on AMC, but you've never had the chance to read the hit comic book series that inspired it? Starting in January 2011, Image Comics will be reprinting the single issues of the hit series -- shipping one issue per week all year long!

"Keeping a series like this going year after year is all about creating good jumping-on-points for new readers," says series creator and writer Robert Kirkman. "And what better way to jump on than with the very first issue? Making this series available in single issue form will make it easier for new fans to jump on board and for old fans to fill in any gaps in their collection."

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Tags AMC, Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead

The triumphant march toward Halloween continues, and with it – another horror-based recommendation for your toy shelves. Don’t forget: We here at MTV Geek! care about you…and your needs for terrifyingly badass action figures and collectibles. Today we have a triumvirate of serial slashers to show you, and they’re in completely different styles; so, there should be a kill-machine that’s right up your alley!

Mezco Toyz holds the license for many of the larger horror franchises from yesterday and today, and Halloween (fitting, right?) is one of them. Halloween has weathered the storms and is still going strong today with remakes and merchandising out the wazoo! This is due in no small part to the star of the series, Michael Myers. Yes, this coverall-wearin’, Captain Kirk mask-sportin’, Laurie Strode stabbing-enthusiast has torn his way through our jugulars and straight into our hearts… but in a good way! Mezco pays tribute to "The Shape" himself through three diverse action figure-y offerings:

CINEMA OF FEAR 12 INCH MICHAEL MYERS

Michael Myers, the infamous masked slasher of the sliver screen, now a
deluxe 12inch scale collectable figure as seen in the instant horror
classic Halloween 2. Featuring his film-specific outfit from Halloween
2; including a real cloth jacket with vest and knife accessory. This
fully articulated figure is packaged in a collector friendly window box.

http://www.mezcotoyz.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=847

MICHAEL MEYERS STYLIZED ROTO FIGURE

Michael Myers , the premier figure of the modern slasher horror genre, the infamous masked maniac, is reimagined Mezco style. Although he spawned a legacy of nearly a dozen films, this is the 1st time Michael Myers has ever joined the world of Designer Vinyl figures. This 9inch tall terror from Haddonfield is dressed in his classic jumpsuit, comes with oversized bloody knife and features “real” hair and features ten points of articulation.

http://www.mezcotoyz.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=843

MICHAEL MYERS CINEMA OF FEAR ROTO PLUSH

Introducing the new Michael Myers Roto-Plush, this 14inch figure
combines a highly detailed roto-cast head, hands and feet with a plush
body and removable trademark knife along with "real" hair. Although he
spawned a legacy of nearly a dozen films, this is the 1st time Mezco has
ever reimagined him as a plush figure.

http://www.mezcotoyz.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=841

Tags Halloween, Michael Meyers, Rob Zombie