Once upon a time, the Mushroom Kingdom was an enchanted place full of cheerful Toads, ruled by a kind, cake-loving lady who had a thing for Italian plumbers.
Then the kingdom’s benevolent ruler became infected with the T-virus, and things went dark. Donald Kennedy, also known as KodyKoala, has decided to show us the aftermath of this hypothetical event by making a figurine that revolts me more than anything I’ve seen since the dead tauntaun wedding cake.
The front view is already pretty disturbing. The Toad-victim has a look of sheer horror on his face, while a rather disheveled Peach appears to be kneeling at his side. At first, I thought she was crying at her faithful companion’s death – maybe even trying to bandage up a cut on his head? No such luck.
Seen from the other side, the Zombie Peach sculpture begins to enter nightmare fuel territory. Yes, that’s our beloved princess eating a Toad’s brains. I like the addition of bones to this scene, as if a few femurs could really add more horror to brains being devoured by a pink-clad lady.
But it’s the front view that really does it for me; Peach has a demented look on her face, with red eyes that practically bulge out of their sockets.
Closer up, you can see the detail that went into her face – especially how all the flesh around her mouth seems to have rotted away. It’s nice to see she never lost her crown, though – a princess is still a princess, even if she’s devouring her subjects, after all.
At this point, I should mention that while the brains do look quite detailed, though they look a bit more like muscle tissue. Then again, Toads are sentient mushroom-based creatures, so just about anything goes when it comes to detailing their anatomy.
This is quite a disturbing piece coming from KodyKoala, as he normally focuses on somewhat cute steampunk pieces. His Mega Man cutaway sculpture does toe into sinister territory, but there’s nothing overtly gory about the inner workings of a robot. However, this positively gruesome Zombie Yoshi is definitely closer to the feeling of the Zombie Peach figurine; while there’s a marked lack of brain-eating in the Zombie Yoshi, it’s still pretty scary.
