REASONER REVIEWS SOTA TOYS NOW PLAYING SERIES TWO

Reasoner is a reasonable man but not a reasonable toy collector. I want it and I want it now! And the quality had better be worth the investment. In the case of SOTA's Now Playing Series II there is no reason to be dissatisfied.Remember a little movie called Killer Klowns from Outer Space? It was made by a sibling run effects team for next to nothing and besides having a great design for it's klown monsters it was a point of rally for everyone who believed in fandom. Killer Klowns was made by fans and through the years been adopted by them as a classic. A great special features laden DVD was released a few years ago but very few collectibles have hit the market.

Reasoner is a reasonable man but not a reasonable toy collector. I want it and I want it now! And the quality had better be worth the investment. In the case of SOTA's Now Playing Series II there is no reason to be dissatisfied.

1. SOTA's Now Playing lineup is easily the most diverse and most fun of any leading toy company. Series One offered Darkman, The Toxic Avenger, and the Nazi Werewolf from An American Were wolf in London formed Series One and future series (they are planned up to series four) look even more creative. These are figures that just haven't been available as collectibles before.

2. Series One came packaged in a sort of see through theater marquee blister card. But even though the lineup for Series 2 ditches the cool packaging it's still quite displayable if you're the type that doesn't open their figures up.

3. Series 2 offers Killer Klowns from Outer Space. This movie was a real labor of love by the Chiodo brothers who reached deep into their own pockets and took a chance on something should have and every frame of it shows. It's cheesy to be sure but the design of the clowns ranks them as some of the most wonderfully spooky clown monsters ever. Also available are Creeper from Jeeper's Creepers 2. Hey no wings but Jeepers 2 is easily the best of the two films conjuring a monster movie vibe that's sorely lacking from the horror genre these days. And JC2 gets a major thumbs up for making good use of ray Wise who plays a wild eyed monster hunter in the film. The last doll in the Series 2 lineup is Imhotep from The Mummy Returns. It's the weakest of the three films represented by Series 2 but Imhotep himself is a masterpiece of monster design offering a half mummified half regenerated interpretation full of holes, gore, and rotting bandages.

4.

The accessories are outstanding. Killer Klowns has a rather plain spaceship floor base but offers a cotton candy gun and a victim encased in a skin liquifying cotton candy cocoon along with a half pillar to hang his cocoon from. The blue costumed variant figure is nice and does come with a jawbreaker bat but I would rather have had an entirely different klown figure. Jeepers creepers offers a muddy farmland base with barbed wire fence background, a beautifully done blue/black crow, throwing axe, bone knife, bone throwing star an optional hand and best of all an optional creeper head that's been impaled through the eye by a spear. My favorite base of Series Two though belongs to Imhotep who stands on a sandy ruin covered by a swarm shiny blue black scarab beetles. The only other accessories with Imhotep are a pygmy mummy and throwing spear. Didn't like the pygmy mummies and I never will- but the base here is coooool.

5. Upping the ante (and also explaining the absence of an entirely different variant Klown figure) is the 20' Blockbuster Figure Darkness. Simply one of the most amazing ¼ scale figures I've ever seen the damned thing (I'm not swearing. I'm pretty sure Darkness is actually damned) even talks!

6. Series 3 promises to make Now Playing simply must have including as it does figures from Dune, Legend, Dog Soldiers and a very, very cool The Thing Box Set.

7. The price is right. I've seen these things as low as $14.99 and the collectability is solid. SOTA is a toy company that needs to be encouraged by fans.