The return of the Living Dead Dolls - Sadie

 It took about a year, but Sadie's finally here!

Preordered back in early 2023, there were some delays with this release though i'm not sure why. Her release kept getting pushed back without any information being offered. So hmmm.

Living Dead Dolls are BACK though, after a hiatus of a few years (excluding their "presents" line of movie tie in dolls) and a big drama involving one of the creators being removed from the project. 

I don't know the full details on that beyond "he was scamming people for money for work he never did for years and everyone was sick of his shit and then his business partners cut ties"

That's all I know. 

I'm sure there's some juicy gossip involved, i'm just not privy to it and his former partners are being hush. 

Anyway, that whole thing was a big reason I believe for the massive delay between now and the previous series 35 which came out back in 2018. Yeah, we haven't  had a core doll release for LDDs since 2018!??? We've had a few movie dolls in that time, but no original dolls. 

So when in 2023 it was announced that LDD was coming back and in a new form, it was pretty exciting. 

The only downside was the price point which was a rather eye-watering $120 +P&P

Mezco have at least it seems, finally sorted out their international shipping. But with postage and customs fees and all that, Sadie cost me a pretty penny.

So was it worth the money? And was it worth the wait? 

Sadie comes in a coffin shaped box like most LDDs do, only this one has a semi transparent sulfur symbol on the front that the doll is peeking through. 

This symbol is partially painted white and it looks like sediment. It reminds me of fake snow or something lol.

The back of the box features a photograph of the doll which is unusual. We've seen this on the box form releases like the "Presents" line and the Oz and Wonderland dolls, but I don't think they've ever done it on a coffin box. 

Usually the back of the coffins has a blurb about the doll line and the creators. 

Curiously, unlike the previous dolls, this version of Sadie doesn't come with a clear plastic lid to display the doll. 

She's nestled into a plastic cutout and covered in a plastic shell like the more recent series dolls were. I do appreciate that the red plastic insert looks a bit like a coffin interior. That's a fun detail.

Her coffin is extra deep because underneath the doll is a whole other segment with all her extra stuff. We'll look at all this in a bit.

She also has her instructions which tell you how to replace her head as she comes with two face plates.

They make it seem fairly straightforward here but let me tell you now, I found the process really awkward and fiddly. 

 

 

Here's Sadie herself free from her plastic. I'm pleased to see Mezco continue not to staple/strap their dolls into the boxes. You just snip some tape and the doll is ready to play. I wish more companies would do this. I HATE those plastic straps and staples. 

 

Now you may notice that Sadie looks quite different. Living Dead Dolls typically are toddler-like little 10 inch dolls with only 5 points of articulation (shoulder, hip, neck) while this doll is a lot more distinctive. 

She's about the same height, but she's hefty and articulated in the knees, elbows, wrists and chest. She has inset eyes that are attached to a mechanism inside her head so they can be moved. But they can only be moved if you open her head which is unfortunate. I wish they'd done something like Pullip where there was a little lever hidden under her hair so you could move her eyes more easily. 

Her hair is a wig fastened to a plastic scalp. It's soft and very shiny, much nicer than the nylon they've used for previous dolls which has a tendency to be dry and frizzy. I think it's saran, it's a bit greasy feeling which often means saran.

This version of Sadie has a fairly healthy complexion, it's a sort of slightly tanned beige rather than the ghastly sallow pale of her 20th anniversary (series 35) doll.

The new body reminds me a bit of something like Tonner. It's made of a matte heavy plastic and her proportions are more like YOSD/1:6 bjds or something. 

She's slightly taller than the old dolls, her arms longer and her hands bigger. Her head is bigger too.

Her feet are curiously enough, slightly smaller. Because her shoes are squishy they fit on the old dolls quite well, but the old doll shoes are too large. 

 

 

Old shoe on the left, new shoe on the right. 

Also interesting is that Sadie can fit her older doll's dress. It's a little tight around the waist and chest, but it DOES fit. 

Sadie's little 60s shift dress is crushed velvet with a satin collar and cuffs. Underneath the dress is an integral under shift in white which should prevent staining. This is a very good ideas as staining is an ongoing issue for Living Dead Dolls. 

My dress came with some loose seams on one of the cuffs which I had to resew and her little skull brooch is a bit loose.

She has two tiny white buttons on each cuff. On mine one of the buttons fell off as soon as I took her out of the box so that had to be found and repaired as well. They're SO small. I ended up threading the thread through the holes and then the needle because none of my needles were small enough to go through the holes.

Sadie's second layer is a velvet and lace cape. It's listed as a "shawl" in her description but I would call this a cape. It fastens with tiny snaps with little black buttons over them and has holes for the arms. 

It also has little button embellished pockets at the front and a fancy lace trim. 

It's fully lined and gorgeous. 

Mezco had a decent budget and they really went to town with it, you can tell. 

Her socks are white stretch polyester? with little ruffles and she has a pair of Mary Janes made in soft rubbery plastic. 

When she arrived she had plastic under her outfit, presumably again, to protect her from staining. I didn't like how it made crumply sounds under her clothes so I removed it. Her dress is lined and the collar and cuffs are white so it SHOULD be okay anyway. But I do appreciate that Mezco finally considered this. So many of their older dolls have really bad staining from black clothing. Even the 2018 dolls had it.

Her body has, as I mentioned, articulated ankles, knees, wrists, elbows and even a bust/chest joint. Mezco claim "18 points of articulation" but i'm not sure I count that many? I count 14? Am I stupid? 

Anyway, her wrists don't pose very well. They have very little up/down movement but they rotate. Her elbows bend a little more than 90 degrees which is fine for most simple poses and her bust joint allows a very minimal slouch or side tilt. 

Her head is molded to her neck as one piece and can tilt pretty well. I do like a doll who can do a good neck tilt.

This is as far as her knees bend, which allows her to sit quite well but she cannot kneel really. Her ankles barely move at all. No pointed toes for this girl. They do allow her to turn her feet inward or outward though, which can be quite effective.

Her articulation does allow for some maniacal poses though. 

As well as some suspiciously coy ones. What does she have behind her back? Well i'm not saying it ISN'T a meat cleaver.... 

By far the heaviest thing in the coffin was this resin tombstone. Unlike previous editions, Sadie didn't come with a death certificate or... so I thought.

it turns out it's hidden. 

You see, one of the little cobrals/swirly bits on this tombstone feels a bit loose when you wiggle it and if you're brave enough to be a bit firm, you can twist the top section of the stone and pull a tube out from inside the pillar. Inside there's a roll of paper, which has Sadie's death poem on it . 

Sneaky. 

I didn't try this at first because I assumed the looseness was just a side effect of how the thing was made. But others online mentioned it was holding a secret so I had to have a look myself.

I had real trouble twisting the thing, it was very very stiff and I was scared i'd break it. I managed it, once, but I didn't take photos. I don't want to try again to do so because it was difficult enough the first time. I have weak hands, I don't wanna. 

If you really want to, you can watch Joshua Lee on Youtube demonstrate.

The back of the poem paper has a code which I am told deciphers to "find me LDD Sadie" using the Thebian alphabet. 

The tombstone features the LDD slogan "deader is better" and Sadie's death date, April 26 1969.

Sadie also comes with three extra hands. Two grippy hands and one pointing hand. 

These are really easy to mix and match, the hands hold on with a peg so a firm tug will remove the hand allowing you to dress the doll easier or swap out a new pair which just click into place. 

The other item in this image is a hair bow which is really cute with the little skull but it just has a little piece of velcro on the back to hold it to the hair. It's not a very secure attachment and my attempts resulted in it just falling off if I moved the doll. 

I'd have very much preferred either a proper clip or some sort of peg into scalp system. I think this thing will get lost very easily as a result of the weak attachment. What a pity because it's really cute.

Also really cute is Sadie's teddybear. He's a teeny tiny little sewn plush bear with real button eyes. He's made of some sort of slightly sticky coarse feeling fur so he's not as pleasant to touch as i'd have liked but he's very very cute.

Sadie also comes with a cleaver, a pair of sunglasses with real hinged arms and a coffin shaped bag.

The bag actually opens but you can only fit the sunglasses into it. Sadly her cleaver is too big. Alas. 

The sunglasses look a lot like the ones from the Oz variant Emerald City set but I don't believe those had hinged arms and I don't think they had the same batwing design. They are similar though. 

Sadie's grippy hands of course means she can actually HOLD her weapon which I always like in a doll.

Unfortunately other Sadie weapons, like the knife her 2018 doll came with are too skinny for her to hold onto. Alas! 

Sadie's final accessory is a bunch of black roses. These are an odd addition because they're just black dyed fake roses that you'd find in any embellishment section of a craft store. They don't quite feel like they really GO with the rest of the stuff, they feel like a last minute addition to make up piece count or something. 

I dunno. 

they are an odd choice. 

I think i'd have preferred them to have been made of molded plastic or something instead, so at least they'd fit in aesthetically with the rest of her items. Instead we just have some random 2 cent fake flowers from Hobbycraft. 

VERY random. 

They're also too skinny for her to properly hold because they weren't designed for her. These are balanced on her hand, she can only hold them if her hand is upright because the stems are too slender. 

so yeah... 

Sadie comes with two faces, one slightly grumpier than the other but honestly they're so similar i'm not totally sure I understand the point. 

One has more of a smirk while the other has more downturned lips and more asymmetrical eyebrows but the similarities are, to my eye at least, so subtle that I find myself disappointed they didn't do MORE with this idea. 

The compact little eye mech slots into the face mask and has a lever on the back that allows you to move the eyes. But you can only move the eyes when the head is open like this as I mentioned previously. I really do wish they'd give her a level that was accessible from the outside of her head. 

I found opening her head up quite awkward and fiddly and then it messed up all her hair and bits of hair got caught or things got lopsided and arghhhh!

so if I want to change her eye position, the idea of having to go through all that again just for a minor adjustment makes me not want to do it. Which raises the question, what is the point of moveable eyes if they're so annoying to access and if you have to disassemble the damn doll in order to move them?

The eyes have a huge range of motion so it's a real pity Mezco didn't think about this design flaw. 

Her "head" piece without the face plate and scalp is terrifying. 

In order to get the head back together you have to line up the face plate and eye mech (which thankfully does slot into a special slot that holds it in place) and line it all up with the pegs on this piece. then you have to squeeze the scalp piece and line that up with the little catches while pushing the hair out of the way so it doesn't get caught in the seam. And while doing this the level that moves the eyes is VERY easy to knock so then her eyes are rolled back in her head or something and you have to start again to readjust them.

The first time I felt like I needed at least one more hand because if you put the face plate on without the scalp piece you can't then squish the scalp piece onto all the catches easily and the hair and fringe just gets in the way. 

I just found it really fiddly and getting the parts apart can hurt my hand because the catches can be a bit stiff. Then there's the wig. The fringe especially just gets in the way and makes it a bit frustrating to figure out if things are all lined up properly. and if you press on her face plate the wrong way when trying to get it attached the eye mech will pop out of its slot and fall into the head so then you have to open it up again and ARGHHHHHHHHHHH

Sometimes the wig/scalp piece will pop on and off relatively easily, but I found that is actually only the case if her face plate is ever so slightly out so there's a bigger seam between face and head. This results in the back and front catches of the wig/scalp piece not fully seating which then means when you squeeze it the side catches release and the whole thing pops out. If you push the head and face plate flush then the front catches click loudly and then getting the whole thing apart becomes a lot harder as those specific catches do NOT want to let go.

I suggest putting the face plate on first, then sort of rolling the scalp piece on, lining up the back catch first and ending with the front one which may or may not latch. It can take several attempts and now her hair will be all messed up so you'll have to smooth that down and push the long pieces back and ensure the fringe doesn't have a big gap in it now. 

God it's annoying. 

Maybe i'm just dumb and can't do this right.

 

Anyway, 

Return Sadie has so much more expression and personality than previous dolls. Much as I love the older LDDs, this new girl has so much more character in her little face. I really enjoy her. 

She's a well made doll with some pretty glaring design flaws, but she IS Mezco and LDD's first go at a doll like this. She marks a huge departure from what they've been doing for the past 20 years with the brand. 

The price is painful, but I feel like you can tell they did actually put that money into the design and material choices. 

I do think she's a bit overpriced and I would have been fine with having her come with less extra junk at a lower price point. I feel like a lot of her extra stuff is just there to pad the piece count and justify the price point. Others may disagree, but cute though pieces like the teddy bear and bag and tombstone are, I cannot see me displaying them or using them. 

Same goes for her second face which just isn't distinct enough from her first. 

Her clothing is beautifully made, albeit with some little errors here and there like my doll's cuff and button. Her joints are solid, her plastic is hefty and good quality and her paint work is pristine. 

I do appreciate her additional hands and her moving eyes, I just really wish I didn't have to take her head apart to switch those up.

 Was she worth the wait? I think so. I had a blast posing her, especially with her cleaver which is an excellent accessory. 

Was she worth the price? That i'm not so sure about. I have a whole coffin full of pieces I suspect i'll never again even remove from the box. As I said earlier, I think i'd have preferred a lower cost with less random extras. 

That said, if we compare Sadie's price to other "collector" doll lines out there, she's not that differently priced. Mattel regularly charge £80+ for playline quality dolls in a fancy box and MGA is little better with some of their price points. Disney Store dolls are regularly well over £100 and sell on the secondhand market for substantially more again. So I can't really accuse Mezco of pricing themselves unreasonably or unrealistically. 

Since Sadie was announced we've also had Exorcist and Damien revealed. Which means we're probably getting Posie and Sin as well, to fill out the series 1 roster. 

It's always fun to see re-imaginings of these signature characters, but I can't help but wonder if this is a last hurrah for the brand or what will happen once all 5 dolls are done. Will we get other dolls in this style or will they return to the original look? Will we ever see another original series release? 

Only time will tell, but certainly if this is the direction of future LDD releases, one doll at a time and with a $120 price point and a year wait, it's going to be very slow going for collectors. 

I mean, i'd love to see other dolls in this style. Angus Littlerot would be a great choice as his original release came with three face variants anyway. I imagine Frozen Charlotte could be spectacular in this style. 

But we'll have to wait and see. 

Much as I like Sadie, Eggy and Damien don't really sell me the same way. Least not for the price point. 

$120 I gotta LOVE the whole package you know? 

Her hair likes to go everywhere.