What, you thought I’d let a whole Halloween Countdown slip by without a new edition of Vicious Videocassette Boxes? NOPE.

Down below: Another five horror videos from my personal collection, which I’ll admit are mostly used for decorative purposes these days. So what? They’re cheaper than paintings, and it’s more fun to decorate shelves than walls.

All five should help you remember a time when trips to video stores felt like trips to theme parks, filled with things you couldn’t wait to ride… and things you would’ve ridden if you weren’t such a fraidy cat.

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)

This one performed well enough at the box office, but I’ll never understand how it hasn’t garnered a bigger following in the years since.

If the film came out today with not a single thing changed, it’d be a HUGE deal. The web has allied millions of horror fans who were previously doomed as strangers, and I have little doubt that a movie this beautifully bizarre would spend a solid month as a Twitter talking point.

If you’ve never seen the movie but were a fan of the TV series, the film was — tonally speaking — much different from the show. Actually, it felt much more in league with Tales from the Crypt. (Less cerebral, but loud, gory and in-your-face.)

Presented as an anthology, it’s really four short movies, featuring everything from killer cats to brutal gargoyles. Loaded with cult favorite actors (name another movie with William Hickey, Buster Poindexter and Blondie), the film’s highs spiked way harder than its lows, and I just can’t recommend it enough. If you’re looking for something to round out your Halloween movie marathon, please consider this one! Read More…

Posted by Matt on 10/28/15
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Last year’s tribute to vintage Halloween treat sacks seemed to go over well, so let’s do that again.

Collected below are another five ancient trick-or-treat bags. All were originally given away as promotional freebies, meant to increase our loyalty to burgers, beer and batteries. Pillowcases were more effective, but these sacks sure looked a lot cooler:

McDonald’s Halloween Safety Bag! (1978)

This bag is older than I am, and it comes with a delicious bit of trivia: The “McBoo” character may have become world famous through McDonald’s Halloween Pails promotion, but he actually debuted many years earlier!

Originally conceived as a simple “sheet ghost,” McBoo appeared on a number of McDonald’s items, including a 1970s version of their Halloween treat certificates. He’d only later be “re-imagined” as an orange bucket. Funnily enough, once the pails went kaput in the ‘90s, McBoo returned to sheet ghost form as part of a different McDonald’s promotion!

All things being equal, I think ol’ McBoo has a rich enough history to be considered as a legit McDonald’s mascot. He’s not on the level of a Ronald or a Grimace, but somewhere in McDonaldland, McBoo is haunting something. Read More…

Posted by Matt on 10/27/15
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Guys, I have big news. Big news to me, at least. For the rest of you, I guess the weight of this news depends wholly on how much stock you put into the continued visibility of Frute Brute.

Monster Cereal fans know that the situation with this year’s Walmart-exclusive “mask boxes” was a bit messy. There were three distinct box styles released this year, including the previously-covered Target exclusives with those awesome cutout castle pieces. Walmart’s boxes were supposed to come with glow-in-the-dark masks.

And they did. Sort of.

Earlier this month, many of us came to the sudden realization that nobody had posted proof of these reported “mask boxes.” Further digging showed that they did indeed exist, but only in Canada.

Well, as it turned out, the masks were right under our noses for several weeks. As told to me by Dan from Cerealously, it wasn’t the actual Monster Cereals getting the mask treatment, but rather random, unrelated General Mills cereals.

A quick trip to Walmart confirmed this. Lo and behold, on the back of a family-sized box of Cocoa Puffs, there was the elusive Count Chocula mask. General Mills had delivered on their promise, and if they were guilty of anything, it was just being oblique.

But that’s not the big news…

Okay, so you can find the Count Chocula mask on boxes of Cocoa Puffs. If you want to dress like Franken Berry, consult Reese’s Puffs. Boo Berry fans will need to plow through an enormous box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. All well and good.

But the big surprise was the return of FRUTE BRUTE and FRUITY YUMMY MUMMY, in mask form! What?! A FRUITY YUMMY MUMMY MASK ON THE BACK OF LUCKY CHARMS?!

In 2013, General Mills shocked the world by resurrecting both of the long-discontinued Monster Cereals. By 2014, they went “back in the vault,” with no guarantees made that we’d ever see them again.

I expected General Mills to downplay their significance, as there’s little money to be made from publicizing mascots for cereals that no longer exist. The first sign that they’d instead decided to embrace their full canon came by way of Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy’s hidden cameos on this year’s Monster Cereals Castle. That, admittedly, was just a minor nod to major fans, but these masks mean sooo much more. Read More…

Posted by Matt on 10/26/15
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