The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover with Universal Monsters got back to 1993’s playmates line with Mike as Frankenstein, Don as Dracula, Raph as the Mummy, and Leo as the Wolfman. In 1994, Playmates released Invisible Man Michelangelo, Bride of Frankenstein April, Creature from the Black Lagoon Leonardo, and the Mutant Raphael. Jump forward in timer and NECA announced the modern TMNT x Universal Monsters crossover with Raphael as Frankenstein in October of 2021. Through 2022 and 2023 NECA completed what seemed like a full line of figures with:
- Raphael as Frankenstein
- Leonardo as the Hunchback
- Michelangelo as The Mummy
- Donatello as The Invisible Man
- Splinter as Van Helsing
- Casey Jones as The Phantom
- April O’Neil as The Bride
It was a bit of a surprise to see them start over with Leonardo as the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Raphael as the Wolfman in 2024 before adding black and white versions of all of the previously released turtles. And the existence of Splinter as Van Helsing could only mean one thing: Shredder as Dracula.
Then at Toy Fair 2025, NECA went bonkers. For the Universal Monsters line, they announced Krang as the a combo Robot Monster / Metaluna Mutant, a two-headed turtle of Donatello and Michelangelo, and finally, finally, finally, finally, we saw Shredder as Dracula.
Shredder as Dracula went up for order in mid-Toy Fair on March 3 and arrived to my home on April 26. Actually, two of them arrived to my home. In NECA’s ongoing fulfillment woes, I ended up with two boxes, each with their own Shredder as Dracula. The TMNT x Universal Monsters figures take their mashups from movies on both sides, this one merging James Saito’s Shredder from TMNT 1990 with Bela Lugosi’s Dracula from 1931.
The figure comes with three swappable heads. The first is without a helmet, showing the trademark TMNT 1990 slash across a Bela Lugosi-esque face. He’s a bit more evil-looking compared to Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula, but this is Shredder we’re talking about after all.
The second head gives Shredder a hanna-inspired mask attached to a TMNT 1990-ish helmet and it looks absolutely badass. It’s the head that I’ll choose to display on the figure. The red accents on the helmet match the rest of the figure’s armor accents and it’s kind of the perfect mashup.
The third head is a full-on evil Shredder as Dracula, having mostly transformed into a bat. When I said that NECA went bonkers, this is bonkers. The helmet turns the Dracula-as-bat up to 11. It’s also the head that NECA chose to display on Daniel Horne’s box art. The helmeted heads can be a bit of a pain to securely place on the figure, but I managed to get them on and off with relative ease using a heat gun to loosen up the joints a bit.
The helmets don’t leave a lot of movement for the heads between the shoulder armor of the figure, but if you’re gonna choose form over function, it’s for this figure. There are a series of compromises made when it comes to the figure’s poseability, and they are all in favor of how the figure is dressed over range of motion of a joint.
Something I never noticed about the 1990 Shredder until this figure is that he only had a blade on his left hand, which this figure accurately re-creates. In each of the two pairs of additional hands, only the left hand is bladed. While the 1931 Dracula is formally dressed for the film, this figure obviously leans more heavily into Shredder’s armor, for good effect.
He comes with a soft goods cape, which does not have a wire armature, and softer plastic draped robes over his chestplate, vambraces, greaves, and chainmail. It’s the plastic robes that cause problems with leg articulation, but I couldn’t really imagine making this character kneel while posing him.
Shredder as Dracula also comes with a spear, turtle skull, turtle candle, spear, juice jug, and lifeless rats. They’re fun additions to the figure on top of the weapon, and swappable head and hands and add some splashes of color to the Universal Monsters world that this figure inhabits.
While Shredder and Dracula are the obvious mashup you’d expect for this crossover, the action figure still delights. The Dracula amulet from the 1931 film is on the center of the chest armor in a good adaptation from the film. He loses some of the goofier parts of the Shredder costume, like the shiny patterned cape and the purple robe and we’re left with the look of a true villain.
This version of Shredder as Dracula is only the first of three announced versions. Target will get a different color way, featuring more burgundy in the armor, and Best Buy will get a different color way, sporting more of a purple look. Each will have their own uniquely tinted box art. I’m sure we’ll also see a black and white version down the road as well.
| Title | Credits |
| Direction, Design, and Development | Randy Falk Trevor Zammit Stefan Folkins James Gorman |
| Sculpting & Fabrication | Tony Cipriano Paul Harding |
| Tailoring | Nicole Falk |
| Paint | Geoff Trapp Mike Puzzo |
| Prototypes | Roger Fernandez |
| Photography | Stephen Mazurek |
| Packaging and Graphic Design | Chris Raimo |
| Illustration | Daniel Horne |
This is a figure that I’d classify as a necessity for my collection. The Universal Monsters line has been such a delight over the last few years and Dracula feels like both the beginning of the end of the line but also where the line will start to shine brightest. The Target and Best Buy versions don’t have release dates yet, but I’m sure we’ll see them soon enough.
