Ghostly Cactus

As with the TKMaxx review a week ago, these don't generally have super official names, or at least none more specific than "plant" or "mushroom," so we're just kind of naming them descriptively ourselves. This was the first Grim Gardens item I spotted browsing At Home's online catalog, immediately tipping me off that this was likely part of a whole collection. This adorable figure resembles a potted cactus, the kind that grows in prickly bulb shapes that branch off of each other. Does that kind of cactus structure have a technical term?

Whatever you call it, the growths here form the shape of two simple, cartoony ghosts with jet black pits for eyes and mouths, which of course has always been classic to both ghosts AND personified cacti, so it's a match made in heaven! They're even looking "surprised" by one another, even though they're growths of the same plant! Maybe this little cactus is simply haunted by two souls at once, who are only now realizing their plight. Sucks to be you guys!

Red "Cannibal" Plant

Another typical man-eating plant design that a retailer is calling a "cannibal." Is that what we're going with for their generic name? I guess it's fine. It's not what cannibal means, but okay. Sure.

This one may be typical in most respects, but its spiny red mouth-pod is cool, and I like the fact that this one isn't even potted. It doesn't even necessarily look rooted! It's just standing on its woody stem, possibly fully motile.

Spooky Mushroom Pair

Mushroom monsters continue to be a growing part of Halloween for the third or fourth year in a row! Molded together, these two shrooms have cute, ghoulish little faces on their stems with ragged, toothless mouths and red-rimmed eyeballs! We've got a taller one that's a cyclops with a wider maw, and a smaller one with a slightly more humanoid facial arrangement. I do wonder what kind of mushrooms are so green, though. I believe only one species of mushroom in our entire world is green!

Mushroom Man

Another green mushroom, but this one is a single large specimen whose stem forms a whole head with sort of froggish bugging eyeballs, a human nose and rotten pumpkin-style smile. The white mushroom cap is concave, presumably to hold a tealight, but also comes out looking a lot like a chef hat.

Mushclops

A single little mushroom creature in a whole different style with a bright red, floppy cap, yellowish gills and a pallid whitish peanut-shaped stem sporting one BIG round adorable eye and a simple, tiny smile. Absolutely perfect!

Frogoyle

A stone frog or toad is a fairly common garden ornament. So are stone mushrooms. So are stone frogs or toads perched atop stone mushrooms! This wouldn't necessarily be a Halloween item at all if not for the fact that the stone frog has batlike wings, instantly making this a froggy gargoyle! I know, I KNOW, it's only technically a gargoyle if it spouts water, and if it doesn't spout water it's considered a "grotesque."

But when I call this object a gargoyle, I'm not referring to the item itself. The item itself isn't a grotesque, either, since it's not integrated into any kind of architecture. This frog, however, is in my opinion a gargoyle, which is to say that this item does not represent a stone statue of a flying frog, but represents a stone-skinned flying frog monster, which in my opinion is a gargoyle in the "monstrous species" sense, and likely does spew water or some kind of fluid as an offensive mechanism.

Mini Eyeball Plant

Wonderfully enough, we have already seen some plant monsters with eyes in their mouths over the past few years, so this isn't anything TOTALLY new, but it is a great looking example! It has three bright orange pod-mouths, surrounded by green leaves, two of which each have a large eyeball completely filling the oral cavity. Maybe you're thinking the mouths must only really serve as eyelids, but that smaller, younger looking one doesn't have a visible eye in it yet. So perhaps the pods are capable of consuming prey before the eyeball grows in, or perhaps they just eat eyeballs, and they use their last meal to see.

A Different Mini Eyeball Plant

So this one is just a bunch of tapering, dark brown snaily eyestalks erupting from a pot, flecked with greenish fuzzy moss, which looks very cool and charming but is also pretty much lifted directly from Jim Henson's Labyrinth. That's fine, of course; the "eye lichen" is obviously one of my top favorite Muppets of all time.

Ghoshrooms

Is that an intuitive name for these? Does it need a "t?" I feel like "Ghoshroom" has a nicer flow to it than trying to elegantly pronounce something like "ghostshroom."

I realize I separated these from other mushrooms in this post, but they do kind of feel a little different to me. Our previous Grim Gardens Mushroom Figures feel more "biological," whereas these are clearly haunted. They are after all two very dead, rotten, dry looking mushrooms with luminous, gloomy ghostly faces carved into their caps, an entirely different supernatural phenomenon to a mushroom that has grown organic facial features or other living appendages!

Biting Cactus

Holy crap, this one ROCKS. This is an extremely original design for a botanic monstrosity in general! It's a cactus consisting of three long, cucumber shaped growths sporting a random arrangement of thick, bony looking thorns, but some of those thorns are also teeth protruding from the jaws that run the length of every stalk! Cute, pale green little snake eyes and even nostrils complete the visual effect of "cacti" that are also elongated, reptilian heads! It feels like an almost stupidly obvious premise for a creature design, and yet, I don't think I've ever seen it before. A great design in ANY context! it could be a Pokemon! It could be a Digimon!

It also came very, very close to being the #1 on this page, and probably still deserves it, but it's down at the #3 spot because Grim Gardens is just that goddamn good.

RAFFLESIEYE

...Oh my god, I'm really looking at a HALLOWEEN RAFFLESIA STATUE. This would already be awesome enough if it were just the actual, accurate parasitic plant, but the center of the flower is also a creepy eyeball. This IS a design principle I've actually seen before, mostly in a handful of video games, but as a collectible figurine? A seasonal one, no less??? This is like...holy hell, man, this is like, an EVENT. This is something Bogleech.com's Halloween Collectible Reviews were born to witness from day one.

It's beautiful.

I don't know if I'll ever own one. I don't know if I'll ever get to an "At Home" before these are all gone. But just knowing it exists feels as if Halloween is really "back."

TERROR TURT

Are you seeing this. Are you as awed as I am by this cute, happy, smiling little turtle whose entire shell just also happens to be a hellish amalgamation of screaming human skulls? A turtle with skulls for a shell is a kickass concept for another totally new Halloween trinket, and would have been one for the history books no matter what, but I'm so SO glad that the rest of the turtle is so mundane. Not a snarling monster turtle. Not a skeleton turtle. This turt is completely fine and dandy, either living in blissful ignorance of the multiple wicked souls imprisoned in its body, or well aware of and entirely unbothered by the situation. Perhaps even pleased with itself? What sequence of events could have possibly, possibly ever lead to this scenario?

You know what, it isn't just Halloween that's back. Looking at this, I feel as if my very capacity for hope is reawakening. Almost everything else sucks and is horrible, yes, but in the sheer the existence of this preposterous object I believe there lies one tiny, humble reminder that our culture is still capable of joy. That there is indeed still good in humanity. We could all stand to be more like this serene testudine, so unperturbed by whatever in god's name is going on with its life, so content with this unfathomable state of affairs. Just a silly, stupid little turtle. A silly, stupid little turtle still just carrying on, even as it also must carry a maelstrom of pure concentrated doom on its very back. This turtle is you. This turtle is everyone.