Alien Figurine (Marshall's)

I've actually seen a LOT of aliens this year! Halloween-specific aliens, dressed up as Trick or Treaters or hanging around with only their bones. This one is just holding a pumpkin in one hand and a bat (on a stick) in the other, to make sure you know this is specifically a Halloween alien, but it's also standing on a lovely little grey craterscape base that I really appreciate, to let you know this alien is celebrating Halloween on the moon. Good call, wee friend! It is not a great time to set foot on the bigger, wetter rock! I also have to say this is the absolute cutest this type of Alien gets, with its slightly more spheroid head and wider "froggy" kind of smile. Just plain PRECIOUS.

Eyeball Brew (Ross)

Next up, a rather large figure of a skeletal hand, holding an eyeball, rising from a cauldron full of slime and even more eyeballs! This is one of those that feel a little more ambiguous as to whether we're seeing a "creature," exactly, but I'm inclined (correctly) to view this as one complete entity, and that it is "looking around" by doing this.

Skeleton Fish (PetSmart)

PetSmart puts out another glow in the dark fish skeleton decoration every year, and I've reviewed every single one of them. This one is kind of a repeat of a chunky, cartoonish model from years past, but it's significantly scaled down; actually the first "miniature" one

Macarons (Ross)

A ceramic sculpture of multiple spoooooky Macarons stacked up on one another, each with two eyeballs oozing out of their interior. I of course choose to interpret these as sentient, as I do anything with eyes on it. There's also a sheet ghost sitting on top of them, and I'm choosing to believe it's actually a regular sized ghost; these living macarons are just that huge.

Spooky Ladies (Marshall's)

A very cute and very silly set of Salt and Pepper shakers, one is a sheet ghost with lipstick, blush and black gloves, while the other is one giant candy corn with a cute little smile at the base. Both have closed eyes with thick black lashes, and both wear identical black bat bows. The ghost is so elaborately sculpted, too, in nice swooping pose that's also lifting the edge of her sheet (saucy!), and I generally love that she's paired with a giant piece of living Halloween candy, instead of just a different ghost or a more common monster.

Monster Ghosts (Ross)

Simple ceramic sheet ghosts; the kind that are just basically a gumdrop shape with big eye holes, but one is green tinged with the bolts and stitches of a Frankensteinius, and the other is a mummy.

Winged Cat Cookie Jar (Ross)

A cute ceramic cookie jar of a simple, cartoon skull, but with an adorable bat winged black kitten perched on top! It's interesting that I don't see way more winged cats for Halloween; nothing could scream "Witch's Familiar" any harder at a glance, right?

Brain Skull (Micheal's)

I'm not sure these are new for 2025 or not, but Michael's is selling these green-fleshed tabletop skulls with bloodshot eyeballs and exposed brains! Grisly!

Mini Mummy Snowglobe (Walgreen's)

A tiny pumpkin Snowglobe with a tiny but highly detailed mummy inside! A big-headed and squat-bodied chibi type, its parted facial bandages reveal apple-green flesh with corpsey nostrils and black-rimmed, bulging eyeballs. What a lovably vacant gaze!

Mummaid (Micheal's)

We've seen a lot of mermaid skeletons in recent years, but Michael's is now selling one all wrapped in grimy brown fabric to simulate mummified, rotten flesh, like one of them Fiji type mermaids! AWESOME!

Mini Plushes (Safeway)

Safeway is selling a number of original Halloween plushes this year, including these simple little dome-shaped stuffed critters in a remarkably original selection: an adorable purple bat, a spooky moth, a pale green alien head with antennas, and a stitchy patchwork teddy bear head! Pretty much only the bat is all that commonplace, and would still usually get crowded out by such common icons as skulls, pumpkins, mummies, ghosts and witches. We love every one of those here, it's true, but there's just so many of them, you know?! I would like to note that the moth is mistakenly labeled a "bee," which is funny, because Death's Head Moths do in fact mimic the smell of honeybees in order to raid hives. It's finally official, folks, exactly like I've BEEN saying my ENTIRE life: Safeway is as naive as a beehive.

Scary Bear (Safeway)

Safeway has some full size plushes, too, but I think the one of note is this all black teddy bear with teeth, claws and one "X" eye. It's not really rare imagery, no, but it feels like a while since I've seen an off-brand scary teddy bear for sale outside of a crane machine.

Mummy Snail (TJmaxx?)

Allegedly appearing at the occasional TJMaxx, and even a few other outlets, this is a cartoony, green-tinged snail wrapped entirely in mummy bandages! Its body AND it's shell! Holy moley are snails taking off lately. It's like snailmageddon out there. Years ago I might have gone positively nuts over this particular combination and scrambled to add this to Mummy Land (find it on the main page of bogleech.com...IF YOU DARE!) but Halloween has been truly spoiling me rotten lately. A snail that's also a mummy is actually, somehow, not quite surprising enough these days for me to justify the minimum of $40 this appears to go for on the internet.

Mimic Chest (PetSmart)

Another Petsmart Aquarium Ornament is this treasure chest with teeth and eyeballs! We all know a Fantasy RPG Mimic when we see one, though treasure chests have always been go-to fish tank statues, so I'm fairly surprised this is one of the first spooky monster ones I've ever seen. D&D nerds with fish tanks had better go get one while they can, most PetSmarts only have four or five of them!

Fuzzy Deathcaps (CVS Pharmacy)

A couple of bony white mushrooms with humanoid skulls just below their caps, which are topped with black fur. Weird and comical, looking almost like they've got big bowl cut hairdos. These by the way are only the FIRST skull faced mushrooms I've seen this year!

Skeleton Girl (CVS Pharmacy)

This is a standard plastic skeleton, but with a creepy cartoon doll-like head that's not quite skull. Skull colored, yes, with no ears or nose, but stylized in that semi-fleshy way of characters like Sans McUndertale or Jack Skellington. Something about her creepy smile and half-lidded stare also makes me think a little bit of Junji Ito's funnier characters.

Ghosts with Pink Bows (Everywhere)

Is this, like, a reference to something? Is this taking off from some sort of Tiktok meme? I honestly don't know. All I know is that literally every store is offering sheet ghosts with pink bows this year, and many chains have several unrelated sheet ghosts with pink bows.

Light Up Clown Creeps (Winco)

These are plastic clowns whose sparkly dome heads project swirling, psychedelic colors, which is a great thing for a scary clown to do - really putting me in mind of cosmic horror clownery like IT or the Killer Klowns, and they're both so charmingly stylized! Their proportions are actually cute, with the huge eyes level to their smaller clown noses and huge, wide smiles with big chunky upper teeth. You also get a red-haired, red-nosed one with red X's in its wide, crazed black eyes and a blue-haired, blue-nosed one with a more serene, half-lidded gaze. It's not a big difference really, but it's enough to feel like two radically different characters. Crazy Clown and Chill Clown. You need BOTH! Don't separate them!!!!! They are brothers.

Ragdoll Figurines (Safeway)

Another thing from Safeway, these are beautifully detailed and painted resin figurines of three possible characters with huge, round, burlap bag heads. One's a black cat with green button eyes and "realistic" (for a smiling bag monster) teeth. Another is a pumpkin whose jagged mouth is formed entirely by stitches. A third isn't any particular monster, per se, but has a creepy stitchy patch where one of its eyes should be, a cartoony toothy smile, and most importantly a bitten Halloween lollipop, which seems like a direct reference to Sam from trick r' Treat. Is this the first off-brand Sam?! It's about damn time, honestly, that movie's going on something like fifteen to twenty years old and Sam has long become a famous icon. He fully deserves to leak into "generic" Halloween imagery as a broader cultural concept! I actually love all three of these figures and would have bought the whole set if I had a lot more money, but they're somewhere between seven and twelve dollars each. I forget. Five bucks is as high as I'm really willing to go right now...sorry guys.

Metallic Skelesnail (World Market)

Our frend preventthetoast tipped us off on this one, the only really interesting thing available this year at World Market; a totally rad, silvery light-up snail with an underbelly like a series of ribs, eye and nose sockets like a skull, and a shell designed to look like it was formed from autumn leaves! That's a neat touch, in my opinion, making it feel even more like something magically cobbled together from surrounding refuse!

Fungusnails (TKMaxx)

See?! It's a regular Snailloween this year! Acidshadow continues to show me stuff trickling into TKMaxx, and one of those new items are these snail figures, in cloches, with both moss and mushrooms sprouting from their shells!

Freakshow Ghoul (TKMaxx)

And another TKMaxx addition, too! This is a large red and white striped pumpkin with an old timey "FREAK SHOW" sign on it, and standing atop it is some sort of little green goblin creature wearing a sheet and a disproportionately tall party hat. Or, rather, both the pumpkin and the party hat are real life size, and the costumed gremlin is just that tiny!

Eye Creature Planter! (Marshall's)

This photo was sent to me by reader Emma G, apparently spotted at a Marshall's, but neither of my local Marshall's have this yet! An absolutely gorgeous looking ceramic planter of one big eye, including the surrounding eyelid flesh and eyelashes, with two stumpy humanoid feet! The eye on its own might have been kind of forgettable, but put any other appendages on it and that's an eye creature. Hopefully I can find one in my own area before they're all gone, I'm sure the entire country is now racing to claim one of their own.