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Reviewed
by Terry Webb for
Between the psuedo-devil horns, barnacle-encrusted crab claw arms, peep hole divot, forked tongue and fang-lined overbit mouth, Dan Perez really came through with an accurate and inspired sculpt. On top of that, Mr. Seiler further detailed out the Beulah with a quad set of wheel casters and a painstakingly applied layer of tin foil for the teepee-shaped body. Evidently, Mr. Blaisdell beat the heck out of the original foam rubber model with a ball peen hammer to give it texture, and the foil layer simulates that effect remarkably well. Teh part count for the kit may seem high, but it really isn't all that tough to build. The majority of the parts consist of horn-like "legs" which are ingeniously cast on a tiny sheet; there are 41 of them and install with gap-filling superglue. The rest of the kit practically builds itself, but I couldn't resist a bit of extra modification of my own. Both arms feature socketed connections that allow for the permanent placement of them in any position. I took that feature a step further to make the arms fully poseable by anchoring them in place with washers and screws. To do this, I simply cut a circular hole in the bottom of the hollow cast body with my Dremel tool that was large enough to accomodate my fist. Next I drilled straight through the socketed body pockets with a 1/8" drill bit. Matching holes were run into the center of the arm plugs and from there all you need to use is a "stubby" screwdriver to install the screws and washers from the inside of the body. Presto: now you've got two poseable arms every bit as threatening as Beulah's beady-eyed grimace. Accenting the Venusian vegetable in fine fashion is a shapr looking 6" x 3" park entrance-styled nameplate and not one but two accurately detailed "mind control" bats. Both can be mounted on the rock pile sign or you can get creative and mount them on fishing line and have them flying overhead. Wow! I can't say enough good things about this heartfelt tribute to one of Paul Blaisdell's most remarkable characters. It's extremely well-crafted, features nice packaging, and the flawless castings by Earthbound Studios' Mark Brokaw are just another thing to rave about. Oh, in case you were wondering, yes, I do think this kit is better than the Billiken version in both size and accuracy. Final assessment: this kit rocks!.
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all the B-movie monsters to emerge from the 50s, I think you'd be hard
pressed to find one more original than the carrot-castered It
Conquered the World. Paul Blaisdell's monstrous creation was
so unique, it stands out as one of the most bizarre examples of life form
to ever grace the silver screen. Now for the first time, model fans can
actually own a 1/6 scale rendition of the esoteric design thanks to G.K.
fan Tom Seiler and the all-star team he's assembled to reconstruct this
classic B-movie monster. It's dimensions are roughly the size of
a traffic cone, and because of Bob Burns' technical assistance, it's nearly
perfect in every detail. (As many of you already know, Mr. Burns was not
only a close personal friend of
Mr. Blaisdell but was alkso on hand to assist the pioneering SPFX artist
on several of his projects).
