Written by Jonathan Wojcik
Wal Mart 2019!
I still can't say I "like" shopping at Wal Mart. I kind of still have to for their prices on some critical items, but besides being an evil business to begin with, ours apparently thinks every customer is a shoplifter until proven otherwise. First they locked a lot of their items behind glass and expect you to find a worker who will walk you through purchasing and bagging them, then they started making everybody line up and get their receipt checked just so they could leave, and now they've got these electronic gate things that sound an alarm if you try to exit the same way you came in. Wack! What was I supposed to be on about again?
ALIEN LIGHTS
SPOOKY SPACE KOOKS! Been a while since I've seen green spacemen as Halloween party lights, though look closely and you'll notice these are more specifically alien skull lights! You can almost tell at a considerable distance, too, there's just an immediate, subtle skulliness here rather than the usual pointed chins and more almond-shaped eyes.
UNDEAD BRIDE
This is one of those "ground breaker" yard ornaments, which look like they're rising up out of the soil. I've seen many different designs for these, but this is the first one I've seen in a wedding veil, which is pretty sick! You could recreate the Corpse Bride I guess! I think she'd look even better if the lips were black to match the eye sockets, but I guess they go together with the fact that her eyes light up red.
SKULL WINDOW CLING
THe skull is supposedly the main draw here, but you also get two spiders, two totally different moths, a bat, and three sizes of fly, naturally the main reason I got one of these. You also get the words "HAPPY HALLOWEEN," but I felt like only putting up the word "HAPPY" under the skull, both here and on our actual front window. I don't know, it just seemed nice. More universal. More timeless.
RAD SPOOKY DRINKING CUP
They had many different insulated drinking cups with many different patterns, all basically topped with the same plastic skeleton lid. None however were as beautiful as this metallic green affair, decked out in such a lovable selection of witchy icons that even include human teeth!
DEAD DUCHESSES
Hilarious! Look at that ENORMOUS hair! How does a skull have a beauty mark!? I guess the same way it has eyelashes, both probably painted on every morning after she gets out of her gaudy-ass pearl-encrusted casket. These were actually all gone by the very next day, so I guess they're one of the most popular items this year. I get it.
SPOOKY LITTLE FELT PALS
Cute as the DICKENS. Look at the little "x" mouth on the bat! Look at the ghost's little tie! The ghost is also hollow, so he can also work like a finger puppet. They have little cords on them to hang them up, so I guess they're supposed to be spooky tree ornaments, or something.
DEVIL SKELETON
Wow, it's been many a year since I've ever seen a new sculpt for a hanging skeleton's skull! I'm not usually big on Halloween devils, but this one is a lot of fun. I also didn't get a comparison shot, but it's oddly a couple inches shorter than the regular hanging skeletons in seemingly the same line. Just a little fella!!!
PUMPKIN MAN
This is one of those plastic bag things you stuff with leaves or trash or ferrets or whatever you have available to stuff something with, only this one has a whole body. Have I seen that before? I probably have, but I probably forgot. I guess this one stands out because of his more menacing pumpkin face and the way he's sitting like he's inviting you over for a good time. Get some rotten lawn garbage and make yourself a real man!
GHOST FIGURINE
Perhaps this seems a quite ordinary ghost figurine at first glance, but I simply couldn't resist the weathered texture, yellow-splotched ghost or the fake "moss" encrusted to the rotten old fence. It's so much more than JUST a ghost figurine. It's an entire scene! It's an entire little chunk of some haunted midwestern farmstead! I just wish the whole effect weren't so jarringly broken up by a pure black, glittery tree and pumpkin. I bet they'd look excellent just painted like everything else.
VINTAGE CHARACTER FIGURES
These come in pumpkin, owl, cat and I think witch, but it's the pumpkin and the owl that are most worth showing off. I mean, that's pretty usual isn't it? When either is present in a spooky set - let alone both - they nearly always look the best. This is an exceptionally "realistic" owl for this type of figure, clothing aside.
ODDBALL PUMPKINS
One is the simplest, comical ghost face you could possibly carve, and the other is how a Jack O' Lantern is legally required to look on the cover of a 1995 comic book alongside a sexy demon and possibly a flaming sword. The only problem? You can see that the edgier pumpkin only has small, round eye holes, so the face that's actually "carved" into it isn't even the face you see in the dark!
SOLAR GHOST
Walmart rolls out new Solar Spookies every year, but the only really interesting one in 2019 is this extra-goofy ghost. Besides the silly teeth, floppy hat and little pink bow tie, his eyes roll back and forth as his ghostly wing-arms flap!
ANIMATED FRAMED COCKROACH
This is listed on Walmart's official website and even says it's "in stock" near me, but it was not in stock, or if it was, everybody bought them up. I love the idea of just a big, live insect in a picture frame, and there's certainly a logic here, as roaches will get into picture frames and just about anything else in a heavy enough infestation. In fact, my very first experience with real roaches as a child was a household in which multiple framed paintings had built up quite the supply of little, crunchy dead bodies behind their glass, so this is definitely giving me some warm memories.
The question is, who in the world would have framed this specific square of newspaper? It talks about the roach problem and all, but it's not even centered on any one article. This whole item is so abstract. It doesn't really represent any actual kind of thing. I bet it's even more beautiful in person.
GIANT STUFFABLE HANGING OOGIE BOOGIE
At least I was the one who got away with our Wal Mart's very last Oogie, and is this not one of the best looking Oogie products you've ever seen? He may look odd with such a defined head, but that's just the price you pay for that head being cast in lovely burlap-colored plastic. Meanwhile, his soft and stretchy cloth body has bendable arms and a velcro opening in the very bottom that allows you to stuff him yourself with whatever you want! You know! Through his hole! Through his stuffing hole!
I do have a demonstrative photograph that did not come out blurry, but you're going to hate it. I'm going to show it to you anyway.
BONUS AUDIO ENHANCEMENT
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