I'm Not Reviewing Minifigures Series 28

I love LEGO. I love LEGO Minifigures. Since last January, I've been having fun reviewing the full casts of their new unlicensed Minifigures series (Series 25, Series 26: Space, and Series 27). I've even done a retrospective review of Series 14: Monsters, a near and dear collection to my heart. So I've been set on a train of keeping up with Minifigures as a staple feature. And then...

In Space, No One Can Hear You Gag: The Monster High Skullector "Alien" Doll by Mattel Creations

This might be the hardest a doll has seized me in a little while...and I hadn't even seen the films or the full reveal when the wind was first taken out of me!

I Got A Hundred On It: The Monster High Skullector "Us" Set by Mattel Creations

What a beautiful doll release. Blown away from the first look, and nothing's changed.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR US (2019); DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU AT ALL WANT TO WATCH THE FILM BEFOREHAND!

Gogo's Crazy Bones: Series 1

Now, time to discuss the Gogos!

A Look at LEGO "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

You'd think LEGO would be kind of a poor medium with which to adapt The Nightmare Before Christmas. You'd be...kinda right. Nevertheless!

Gogo's Crazy Bones: Introduction

Time for another personal toy obsession!

They Played With Us: The Monster High Skullector "The Shining" Set by Mattel Creations

Mattel Creations, are you headed for a crash or something? Save for a continual release pattern of boy Skullector characters turned into girls, you keep putting out wondrous surprises at breakneck speed and I'm getting worried for your safety. 

Warning for bloody imagery.

A Look at LEGO "Wednesday"

So what if this post was too late to include in my LEGO horror Halloween project? I was in deep, and so I'm making the post anyway! Spoilers for the show will be openly discussed.

Picking Bones, Part 3: Monster High 2025 Dia De Muertos Skelita Calaveras by Mattel

In 2023, I did a run of discussion on Monster High's Skelita Calaveras dolls, including, in my second feature regarding Skelita, her first two dolls made to celebrate the Dia de Muertos holiday--2016's standlone collector doll, and the first Howliday Skelita doll in 2023. Now it's time for another one, which I decided to group into my previous posts as a belated installment in their series!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 12: Conclusion (As of 2025!)

Happy Halloween! Time to close out this project!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 11: Turning the LEGO Haunted House into a LEGO Haunted Home

The crown jewel of LEGO Monster Fighters, and an enduring holy grail for collectors, is set number 10228, the Haunted House. But I didn't love it.

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 10: The 2025 Creator Haunted Mansion

This is a strange place to drop another parcel of monsters--a single LEGO Creator 3-in-1 set consisting of an homage to the 10228 Haunted House, with new but frustratingly unoriginal minifigure designs. I needed them regardless of what their designs were, of course!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 9: Monster Miscellany

Time to wrap up some loose ends!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 8: Pumpkins for Minifigures!

There have been many renditions of spooky pumpkins in minifigure scale, so as a side project, I thought I'd seek them out! 

Living Dead Dolloween 2025, Part 2: Spider Bite

At first, this doll was nowhere on my list for anything ever.

Warning: Lots of creepy spider imagery.

A Living Dead Dolloween 2025: Revisiting the Halloween Series (LDD Roundup #14)

Time for (a little bit of) Living Dead Dolls Halloween again!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 7: The Rest from Minifigures, and LEGO VIDIYO

Time for a bit of a double feature here. One LEGO batch of monsters interrupted the Minifigures line again in such a way there were just too few Minifigures entries after the interruption to make another post just for them! We're still outlining things chronologically, but we're doing Minifigures, jumping out of Minifigures for a bit, and then briefly jumping back in!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 6: Minifigures Series 14

Ten years ago...ouch. Well, anyway, ten years ago, in 2015, LEGO did its first Minifigures series of unlicensed characters united under one concept, and I will forever love that the horror genre was their first choice. And that this series came before the series-size reduction to 12 minifigures!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 5: Scooby-Doo

Not too long after Monster Fighters, LEGO was back with another spooky theme, just a less real one! As anybody who knows Scooby-Doo knows, the franchise deals primarily with a gang of teenagers and their dog investigating supernatural events that turn out to be hoaxes perpetrated by criminals in monster disguises, though the franchise has gone into actual supernatural territory quite often as the decades have gone on. LEGO's theme arrived in 2015 and is based predominantly on the original 1960s Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? series, though, where it's all elaborate hoaxes and all of the monsters are thus depicted as humans in costume. Buncha frustrated theater kids, if you ask me. Sign the crooks up for community plays and I'm sure there'd be no more incidents.

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 4: More Monsters from Minifigures Series

Another small batch of Minifigures cropped up between Monster Fighters and the next big crop of horror figures, so let's take a quick look!

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 3: Monster Fighters

2012's Monster Fighters was LEGO's first and only supernatural horror theme based on the classic horror monster archetypes. Studios was artifice, all being produced on sets for movies, though could be played as real if desired, while the supernatural Hidden Side theme afterward is fully ghost/possession-centric and closer tonally to Ghostbusters than traditional or Halloweeny horror. Scooby-Doo, the thematically and temporally closest successor to Monster Fighters, is all about monster hoaxes. 

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 2: Monsters from Early Minifigures Series

 After the original Castle and Studios monsters from the "pre-modern" LEGO eras, the Minifigures theme served as the next major repository for horror minifigure designs, and started delivering right at the very beginning! The Minifigures line gave us the first horror designs in LEGO's current minifigure art style which stabilized around the late 2000s-2010s and hasn't really changed since, though it's arguable early series still look a bit different facially from minifigures of today. The Minifigures line also gave us our first iterative designs repeating and reimagining monster archetypes we'd already seen. Let's take a look.

A LEGO Horror Chronicle, Part 1: Introduction to LEGO Monsters

Halloween season has begun, and this year, it's all about LEGO!

I've tried to figure it out before, but my love for the horror genre must be somewhat innate. I was always deeply enthralled by witches, adored Halloween, and monsters of any kind were my bread and butter. One of the bigger indicators for my belatedly-acknowledged passion came in the form of my LEGO hobby, and my singular focus therein on monster minifigures. 

Queen of the Golden Screen: Monster High Reel Drama Cleo de Nile by Mattel

That cover photo is edited, but only for shadows. That's a full-color photograph! That means it's time to finally talk about Reel Drama!

Better Late Than Never: LEGO Minifigures Series 27

This is a late discussion, since these figures came out several months ago, but I always intended to feature them.

Get In, Beasties, We're Buying Lipstick: The Monster High G1 "Maul Monsteristas" Five-Pack by Mattel

Let's talk about the tradition of the Monster High five-pack!

She Used to Be a Royal Pain: Monster High G3 Signature Nefera de Nile by Mattel

This is such an unusual history for a doll character.

Swimming in Thunderstorms: Monster High Skull Shores Frankie Stein (Black and White) by Mattel

I don't normally go for beach dolls, but this was an interesting one!

Monster High Skulltimate Secrets Series 5 "Garden Mysteries" Complete

Hey, this is my first ever fully-collected Monster High doll line! And, thus, my first "series complete" post from this brand! Granted, only three dolls makes it an easier sweep, but it's a milestone!

Sleepy Tea: Monster High G3 Skulltimate Secrets Garden Mysteries Twyla by Mattel

 Time for our last garden glam ghoul in Skulltimate Secrets Series 5!

Is it Okay to Like This?: Monster High "13 Wishes" Lagoona Blue by Mattel

Every Rose Has Its Fangs: Monster High G3 Skulltimate Secrets Garden Mysteries Draculaura by Mattel

Getting one recent Venus got me to get the other recent Venus from the Garden Mysteries line, and getting that recent Garden Mysteries doll got me to get this one too!

The Living Dead Dolls Handmade Who Never Was: A Custom Project!

Shiver Me Timbers: Monster High "Haunted" Vandala Doubloons by Mattel

Pirate season is just something I have to live with now. There's no fighting it. Through no intent of my own, I fell into a tradition of blogging about pirate dolls in the summer, despite having no standout affinity for the pirate genre of adventure stories. At this point, why not just go with it? Meet Vandala.

Back For Seconds: Monster High G3 Skulltimate Secrets Garden Mysteries Venus McFlytrap by Mattel

...well, that didn't take long. 

Evil's Evil Twin: Living Dead Dolls Sin, Refired

Time again for a Return LDD review...though I definitely thought this would be sooner after Damien's.

She Devoured Again: Monster High G3 Fearbook Venus McFlytrap

Welcome back to the reigning champion!

Big Emotions: The Monster High "Fearfully Feisty/Fangtastic Love" Inner Monster by Mattel

This toy changed my life forever, and it's possibly the most overdue topic on this blog by now.

Logic and Proportion Have Fallen Sloppy Dead: A "Living Dead Dolls in Wonderland" Sadie Alice Extravaganza!

My next LDD in Wonderland doll is actually the choice that would have made sense to start the look at the collection--Alice, played by one Living Dead Dolls Sadie. 

REVISIT: The Monster High Monsters Frankenstein

For a doll so compelling and gorgeous as Monster High's Bride of Frankenstein, I really didn't do her justice. Nor, for that matter, her Monster mate or Mattel's derivative character, G1 Frankie. Their reviews were too early in the blog (like, literally my first two reviews) for me to have gotten into my current photo practice. 

Infectiously Adorable: Living Dead Dolls Series 11 Maggot by Mezco Toyz

Maggot is one of the LDD fan community's bigger grail dolls. I think this is for the same reason as S12 Frozen Charlotte, and to a lesser extent, S12 Chloe: she's really cute. Maggot and Charlotte are probably the top two sweetest, most gentle-looking and most classically adorable dolls in the brand, giving them much wider appeal than most LDD characters. Maggot is a little grosser with her infectious theme, but it's pretty tame. Her colors are more horror-themed than Charlotte, but that doesn't make her alienating. Maggot also has a trick Charlotte doesn't: she's got a Japanese aesthetic, and Japanese iconography is very popular in the west.

REAL Dug Up: A Brief Look at the ORIGINAL Original Living Dead Dolls

I think I've cracked some lore here.

Mechanical Marvels, Part 2: Monster High's SKULLECTOR Robots!

How's about a sequel to a post I never thought would get one? Turns out, there are now two more robots from Monster High, albeit licensed adaptations, and both are characters who play with the fusion of doll and robot themes in an intriguing way. Neither doll quite convinced me alone, but together, they made for a compelling discussion. Both are also very recent icons adapted to Skullector, and both are from series of media with their next installments releasing June 27, 2025! It's meant to be. 

Spinning a Web of Confidence: The Monster High x Harris Reed Witch Weaver by Mattel Creations

Gothic Living Dead Dolls Roundup (LDD Roundup #13)

My last LDD Roundup pushed me into a Gothic-horror kind of mood with its last two dolls, so I rode that vibe when some cool opportunities fit that spirit in assembling a new trio!

Sitting on Cloud Nine: Monster High G3 Signature Jinafire Long by Mattel

I haven't reviewed every G3 character debut doll, but I've gotten really close. I never went in for the three werecats who play as the Hissfits. I can see myself tracking down an old signature G3 Toralei to cut her hair, though the twins loose for a deal would be trickier. They're another matter--today, we're reducing four debut dolls unchecked to just three by looking at Jinafire. It's a bit of a surprise to myself because the character never did much for me before and I wasn't sure about her G3 doll either.

Time for A Recharge: Monster High G3 Core Refresh Frankie Stein by Mattel

My opinion on this doll has swerved. 

New Doll, Going [to her] Old School: Monster High G3 Scary Sweet Birthday Cupid Asteria by Mattel

Monster High G3 has had some unexpected picks for secondary characters to bring back in its media.

They Showed Up: Monster High G3 Welcome Committee Frankie Stein

There was such a real worry that this doll was never going to release.

Furiouser and Furiouser: "Living Dead Dolls in Wonderland" Inferno as the Queen of Hearts by Mezco Toyz

This was always going to happen. I've made it overwhelmingly clear that I adore both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass and Living Dead Dolls alike, and I'm pleased and chagrined to say that I found the fusion of the two to be really enjoyable-LDD didn't mishandle or misunderstand the material by my judgment! Still, they were hanging in limbo for me collection-wise, primarily because they're quite a hot item on the aftermarket. The catalyst for finally getting into this LDD line was finding a seller who I've arranged to buy a few nice items from, including Sadie as Alice, at the start of June. But while Alice would be the logical place to start reviewing this doll line, logic isn't the parlance of Wonderland...and I ended up finding a good deal for Inferno as the Queen of Hearts and getting her in first.