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Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Dead Collector

By Daniel Lipkowitz, Assistant Editor

It's...

The Dead Collector!

Hailing from another memorable scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Dead Collector made his rounds through the muddied streets of plague-ridden medieval England, ringing his triangle and crying, "Bring out your dead!", then carting away the newly-deceased (and occasionally the not-quite-dead) for the reasonable sum of ninepence.

Packaging:

Like the Black Knight, the Dead Collector comes in a closed-flap box, uniquely designed in the character's own particular idiom style. In the case of the Dead Collector, the packaging is liberally splashed with photo-realistic mud on all sides. Sideshow has once again brought out the details of the package art with a mixture of matte and shiny finishes, making the mud look rather disquietingly fresh. As usual, there are cute little Python-esque notations scattered around the box, and the back features a relevant page from the movie script and several images from the film. Opening the front flap reveals a large display window for the figure and accessories, as well as some pleasantly silly descriptive text and a white box that "has been left blank intentionally" and warns the reader not to place anything inside under penalty of a nasty spoon-bonking.

Inside the box, the Dead Collector is held fast within a plastic tray, itself secured to the "muddy" cardboard backing by a twistie-tie. This particular twistie, one will discover, not only anchors the figure to the tray and the tray to the backing, but also wraps around the Dead Collector's entire torso beneath his clothes, making extraction quite a complicated undertaking (Ha! Undertaking! Get it? ...I'm so very sorry [Ed. Note: You should be.]). Two additional ties secure the figure's hands, while a plastic loop holds the legs in place. A warning: be very careful when removing the triangle from the tray, as it's held in place extremely tightly and made of thin plastic. It may be easier to cut it free than to pry it out and risk breakage.

Accessories:

The Dead Collector comes with two accessories: his triangle and a small "wooden" club. The triangle hangs from a nice metal chain, and both objects have dark paint washes to make them look dirty and used. The figure has no problems holding either one.

Like most of Sideshow's recent releases, the figure also comes with a stand. It's of good quality, with a metal waist-clasp and a large round base featuring the movie logo and the text "Eric Idle as The Dead Collector".

Sculpting and Paint:

The Dead Collector's face is an absolutely dead-on depiction of actor Eric Idle's features. Everything is colored and shaded perfectly, and his eyes have little of the mysterious pinkness that shows up on many Sideshow figures. On his head sits a non-removable patchwork "leather" cap, each stitch clearly sculpted and painted. Great stuff!

For increased movie accuracy, the Dead Collector's face and hands feature a combination of paint washes and brown flecks, making the character look downright filthy. The downside is that the dirt deco is applied only to the head and hands, so when posing the figure, one has to carefully position the clothes to avoid exposing the muck-free lower arms and upper chest.

Articulation:

The Dead Collector uses Sideshow's standard 12" male body. It's very well articulated and has natural-looking jointing and movement. The boots pretty much put the kibosh on any use of the ankle joints, but that's to be expected with this kind of figure, and the rest of the legs are more than poseable enough to compensate.

Costume:

The Dead Collector's outfit is multi-layered and quite realistically peasant-y. The brown shirt and white leggings have the look of coarse, undyed fleece, and the "muddy" leather-esque vest does a good job of matching the sculpted hat. A lot of work seems to have gone into the figure's clothes, from the stitches on his patched pants to the lining of his vest. The studs on the front and back of the vest look metallic but are actually bits of plastic glued securely in place, as are the clasps that hold the string loops of the vest-front.

Taken solely on its own merits, the Dead Collector's costume is an excellent piece of work. The photograph on the back of the packaging, though, shows that the prototype was even more detailed, with painted dirt on all of the clothes, smaller (and considerably fewer) studs and a set of beautifully sculpted metallic clasps to hold the vest closed. This last is the greatest loss; on the final figure, the clasps are flat, slightly abstract in shape and matte silver, much like the Black Knight's belt buckle. They're also glued down so completely that it can be a little difficult to hook the loops around them. I'd guess that the change was a durability issue, since at the 1/6th scale, the original clasps would have been fragile even without having to hold fast to a fabric surface.

Overall:

With an uncanny likeness to the actor and a well-designed costume and accessories, the Dead Collector is another solid entry in the growing Holy Grail line. It could use a bit more filth on the clothes (the boots and leggings are oddly spotless given the muddied state of the vest, face and hands), and the prototype's intricate clasps are missed, but the detailing and execution are excellent, and I'd recommend the figure to any fan or collector of the line.

You can see pictures of the Dead Collector in our Gallery!

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