Review; NECA Night Cougar Alien

Alien to me is the Sci-fi horror and to this day the Xenomorph remains one of the most iconic monsters in film. But if you want to make it more marketable and sell merch you need to change it up a bit, and that's what we have today. So lets take a look at NECA Reel Toys Ultimate's Kenner Night Cougar Alien with Magnetic Kamikaze Parasite!

The packaging, similar to the Rhino Alien, is a nod to the Kenner Alien toys of ages past. There is cover on the front that you can open to see the figure along with a nice product shot of the toy. On the back of the box we have the list of products in the range still with many I have yet to source, but at least now I can mark one off. Something else NECA has done that I like is accredited those that worked on the figure, something we need to see more of in the industry.

Out of the box this is a great sculpt. It has a menacing look about it as well as looking like a predatory creature, one you know you would never escape. The head has been sculpted to be rather slicked back with some nice sharp looking protrusions on the back, and the tail has a nice stinger detailed on the end to show that there are many ways in which this can take you down.

The toy is in a very nice, slightly glossy black. Just enough that when the light hits it, the detailing on the body can show through. There is a speckled white on the clear plastic part of the head which I am not too certain if it is supposed to be there as I don't see it on promotional shots and it obstructs the nice red detailed ridged in the head of the Alien. There is also some very nice red detailing throughout the body that helps add to the menacing look to the figure.

Articulation on the toy is what you would usually expect from NECA. Double joints for elbows and knees with full rotation on hips and shoulders. Hands and feet pivot and rotate. joint below the chest to allow for crunch or stretch. Jaw can open and close and you have the obligatory inner mouth. Tail is rubber coated wire allowing for it to be fully bendable into dynamic poses.

There is an interesting joint on the head that I have not seen on my other Alien toys from the line, the head can rotate and look up and down but there is now a secondary joint that allows the head to look into place so if it is on all fours it can look straight ahead. This is a feature I would really like to see included in future Alien releases.

This Alien release comes with an accessory, which is stated on the front of the box but I thought was part of the Kenner nod that the box is going for. Night Cougar Alien here comes with a "Kamikaze Parasite", what that is I do not know. I did some research on this before writing this piece and there is no background on this, it hasn't appeared in any media. All I could find on it is that it is the projectile that the original Kenner Night Cougar Alien came with, a launchable parasite, that guessing by the name, would take out a target while taking out itself?

The version included here isn't a projectile though like that of the original toy, instead it is a magnetised piece that has storage on the Alien. Thanks to the magnet in the Parasite and I am assuming a magnet in the Alien, the piece stores on the back of the shoulders rather snuggly.

Overall this is a great figure and something I would highly recommend to any Alien collector or Movie enthusiast. Though as I would warm with any Collector orientated toy, caution must be taken handling it incase it will break, the ankles on my copy are feeling very fragile to me.