Halloween may be over, but there’s still plenty of horror to be had.

For instance, here’s some rather bumming news from Diamond Select: according to their latest edition of Ask DST, they haven’t secured the likeness rights to Bela Lugosi. However, they’re still going to do a Dracula figure…just without any specific actor’s likeness.

Admittedly, it took Sideshow years to get the Lugosi likeness for their 8″ and 12″ lines. But I’ll admit that one reason I bought into the DST UM line is because I don’t own much of the Sideshow 8″ line, and I was hoping to be a completist on this one. But with a non-Lugosi Dracula, that completist urge is gone, and now I may pick and choose from the rest of the figures (i.e., no Invisible Man for me).

No one wants a non-Lugosi UM Dracula. No one. I can already see the Michael Crawford review–the man loves his UM, and I suspect he will be bitterly disappointed without a Lugosi likeness.

I’m sure it’s just a question of money, and I think this is one case where DST should just cough up the dough. They have a chance to make a truly excellent Bela Lugosi Dracula figure. I’m more than willing to wait for that.

Otherwise, they might as well put that money toward scoring the license for Bram Stoker’s Dracula and finally giving us that Dracula-in-red-armor figure we’ve always wanted, and skip the likeness-less UM Dracula altogether.