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!
Series 16- Spooky Boy (2016)
This is the expected counterpart to the Spooky Girl, though in the time before Series 16 was revealed, I'd expected a Spooky Boy with more formal look matching her buttoned-up cardigan and modest skirt. Here, however, we have a moody alt teenager with a skull shirt, sideswept black hair, striped undersleeves, big boots, and a gloomy look.
He's also got one fang poking out of his frown, suggesting he's a vampire. It's also indicated through his bio saying he doesn't show up in photos, though his overall look isn't very vampiric. I guess it's up to you. LEGO isn't consistent about whether vampires have red eyes or not, but by default, I file him and the Spooky Girl in a class of their own because they're direct counterparts. As a vampire, though, he's LEGO's first original male vampire with standard black eyes.
The minifigure came with a book of "Spooky Tales" which I've lost and don't really want back. It was one of the old LEGO books that weren't really designed for minifigure use, and the design isn't as good as the scary-stories book that came in Series 27.
Series 16- Cute Little Devil (2016)
This is the second (and so far, last) pumpkin-bucket trick-or-treater, following from the Skeleton Guy in Series 14. Dani in the licensed Hocus Pocus set has a bucket in orange, but with no printing. The Cute Little Devil reuses the Gargoyle wings but has a new imp-horned cap and pointed devil tail, representing the Halloween devil icon.
I don't think this tail was ever seen again after this minifigure.
His pumpkin bucket has a unique face print that's made to be deliberately cutesier than the previous bucket.
The Cute Little Devil's torso depicts a simple red zipper hoodie.
This is a fun figure, but I prefer the real monsters to the trick-or-treaters.
Series 18- Spider Suit Boy (2018)
Series 18 was themed as a full costume party, which meant a cavalcade of the animal-suit figures I never tend to like. I'm more welcoming toward the ones with full-face masks, and this isn't one of the lucky ones, but I'll accept this because it's a spooky costume worn by another greyscale spooky kid! They snuck a monster into the series!
This kid has a fang and association with spiders like the Spooky Boy, but a wider mouth and a heavier brow than him, leading me to believe this is a third character in this niche rather than the Spooky Boy returned. Whether this guy is a vampire is also unclear. He could be the Spider Lady's son, or perhaps that fang is arachnid in his case. His face gives me a bit of Buford Van Stomm energy.
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| The resemblance increases if you put the right hairpiece on him. The figure only officially has his spider mask, so this is not part of his design. |
His spider costume uses a unique open-face spider-head mask and a softer plastic cast for a spider thorax-and-abdomen back piece with a bracket that slides around his neck before the head goes on. Both molds have proven to be one-offs. The torso is printed as a zipper hoodie with a spiderweb pattern.
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| I think the metallic on the eyes is silver, but it sometimes looks faintly blue, which would break with the rest of the figure. |
If LEGO wanted to give him a scarier full-face mask, spider masks were used in the Legends of Chima theme to create the spider tribe.
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| A Chima spider. |
The Chima mask elements never appeared outside of the theme, though, and are slightly more detailed and angular than LEGO's mainline minifigure art style, so I can understand the new sculpt for the Spider Suit Boy, especially since he was decided to have an open-face mask.
The Spider Suit Boy has an alternate face suggesting he himself has been frightened by a spider. Sharp teeth aren't visible in this expression.
It's cute, but I feel like a scared face and a goofy animal costume are poor fits for the "spooky kids" set of monster characters. This figure has more potential appeal to me out of his hood and back piece and with a hair element instead to portray him as a surly third spooky kid, but I keep him in costume out of respect to his official design. I might want to get another copy to restyle.
Series 19- Fright Knight (2019)
This Minifigure is a reference to the Fright Knights Castle theme, but not a very strong one.
The intent is that this Fright Knight is the lingering ghost of an original Fright Knight soldier in aged armor, still wearing the suit and ready to serve.
Only one Fright Knight in one Fright Knights set wore this helmet sculpt, so the Series 19 figure might be this exact guy beyond the grave:
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| A Fright Knight from set 6047: Traitor Transport (photo from Brickset.com). |
It's a very loose remake and doesn't feel super authentic. The Series 19 figure's breastplate sculpt wasn't around back then, the color choices and contrast don't map up as an update of the original figures, and the face looks nothing like the older soldiers. It's a shrieking aqua wraith head with fangs, and it's cool, but nothing about it looks like any classic LEGO face, and the face is honestly more gender-neutral than the knights looked.
With the Series 25 Vampire Knight remaking Basil the Bat Lord and redefining him explicitly as a vampire, I wonder if the fangs on this figure are meant to convey something similar. Is LEGO's new concept that all of the Fright Knights were vampires and this Series 19 figure is a ghost of a vampire soldier? Do the fangs come with transcending into a ghost? Or was this Fright Knight always a fanged ghost and was never alive?
The plume and the sword are translucent to look more ghostly, and the figure is very detailed--but to what effect is unclear because there's nothing beyond the shield that would make me pin this as a Fright Knights homage.
The shield was the first appearance of an updated Fright Knights bat sigil, and this graphic was reused in Series 25.
Even if he was just to be a generic ghost knight, I find this figure a bit messy and incohesive, and I'd have liked so many things to be different. Series 25 knocked it out of the park with their tribute to the theme, so I can forgive this one.
Series 19- Mummy Queen (2019)
The Mummy Queen always struck me as a potential reject or missing character from Series 14. She's a new take on the mummy archetype which would have fit into the Series 14 design ethos, and mummies were the only classic horror archetype previously featured in the Minifigures theme that weren't re-represented in Series 14. I always found the Spectre to stick out a bit due to his simplicity and the fact that he made a second ghost in the series, or else the three zombies felt disproportionate, so Series 14 might have been even better if the Mummy Queen had been released then in a ghost or zombie's space. I have no actual evidence this character was conceived or designed around that time and she truly might have been conceived well after Series 14...but she'd just fit in the group, wouldn't she?
This is LEGO's first female mummy figure, and she uses the headdress introduced with the Egyptian Warrior from Series 13, here in teal. She might have used the wig from the Series 5 Egyptian Queen if that mold was still available, but I suspect it wasn't. That piece proved a complete one-off. There's no indication this mummy is meant to be the same character as that figure, even if she did, macabrely, come with an asp.
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| The Series 5 Egyptian Queen. |
The Mummy Queen has a welcomely rotten and goofy corpse face, with flesh in Sand Blue, a new color for LEGO mummies. Her hands are also uncovered, whereas the previous few mummies' hands were the same color as their wrappings. I love the Mummy Queen's wide pale green eyes and half-toothless grin. Her bandages are white and she wears a teal half-circle collar with a scarab, as well as having jewelry bands on her arms. Her legs are dual-molded for her brown aged skirt, with white bandages printed on the dark tan half a bit unsuccessfully, with the print being thinner than the cast white part of the leg just below.
Like Amset-Ra back in Pharaoh's Quest, the Mummy Queen has an alternate face depicting a burial mask. In the CGI render, this looked like flat minifigure yellow, but it's metallic gold on the physical toy. While the uncovered face makes her a supernatural horror character, the masked face allows her to be a normal archaeological mummy in a dig site or museum, or a subject staged in a historical Egyptian embalming scene. Not to say the masked face isn't creepy too! I'm begging for more media to depict animate mummies in death masks; undead corpses with beautiful static masks make such an eerie picture.
She's a great figure.
So. Committing to linearity, we come to our interruption, because between Minifigures Series 19 and 25 (the next series with a horror figure), LEGO dropped another batch of horror figures. While they could form their own short post, there are so few Minifigures left thus far after this interlude horror topic (one from S25 and one from S27) that it wouldn't make sense to do a separate post for those and treat those as their own topic. With time and more series under LEGO's belt, there might one day be enough to break off the Series 25-on batch of horror figures into their own post, but not as of 2025. I also didn't want to discuss this next bit on the side removed from context of where the Minifigures line was at the time, so they're together in one post. We'll jump into this next thing LEGO did, then jump back to wrap up the straggling Minifigures afterward.
What Was LEGO VIDIYO?
Good freakin' question. Scientists are still trying to figure it out. What we know for certain was that it was a certifiable flop.
LEGO has tried and failed for ages to make a successful theme integrated with a phone app, trying to chase trends toward digital play, but it never seemed to do much for them. VIDIYO, running only during 2021, was definitely their worst failure with the concept, though. The theme was chasing TikTok trends and 1980s modern nostalgia, and was designed with AR technology to let you make music videos with fantastical wacky minifigure characters themed to music genres: Tropico (tropical dance), K-Pawp (K-pop with anthro animal musicians), Fantasy Folk (starring magical characters) Candy Pop (pop with dessert and sweets-themed characters) Robo Hip-Hop (hip-hop starring robots), ETDM (EDM starring aliens), Pirate Punk, Samurap (Japanese rap theming), Discowboy, and Monster Metal (the horror gang)--my focus here. Not every genre had the same amount of minifigures, nor was there a universal structure if each genre collective were to be considered as one singular band. Some genres have multiple singers, some genres have violinists or DJs or dancer roles that other genres don't. I never played the app myself, but colored tiles in the playset models and the printed album-cover-esque "BeatBit" tiles all over the theme were scannable in the app for AR functionality.
VIDIYO sold mostly figure-based packs--BeatBoxes, which were plastic carry cases with minimal building including known figures and a heap of BeatBits; and blind-boxed Bandmates, a bit like Minifigures releases with brick-built stands that hold their own tiles--each VIDIYO character has one unique BeatBit tile matched to them, while all VIDIYO sets also had a random mix of other tiles they can come with.
There were definite deterrents to buying. The BeatBox sets had good figures but they were expensive, and the blind-boxed Bandmates faced backlash for being the first of LEGO's releases to use truly blind cardboard rather than feelable foil packs--Minifigures releases were on their way to do so after.
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| A Bandmates Series 2 box--not the shape current Minifigures use. Minifigures boxes have flat fronts and pockets on the back that are smaller than the front face. |
The Bandmates were arguably slightly sub-Minifigures in production level, or at least had different priorities. There were several new creature head sculpts, the new mermaid tail, new dragon wings, and the new windblown wavy hair, but not any new accessory molds or double-sided heads. The designs shared appeal with Minifigures, and even though the characters are all music-themed, a lot of them come out of that context easily.
VIDIYO's first wave of sets did poorly. Nobody bought the BeatBoxes, Bandmates boxes were ransacked in stores, and the app functionality disappointed people. While the second wave finally dropped regular building playsets, it was too late, and the line was softly cancelled. I guess you could say LEGO was so authentic to VIDIYO's music theme that it even gave its musicians a flop era! Demand was so low, wave 2 didn't even make it to stores in many places--certainly not around me where I was in the U.S. I needed the Monster Metal crew regardless.
Wave 2 figures had to be ordered online, while I got the wave 1 Bandmates I wanted through blind buying at stores. I think Vidiyo had potential, but perhaps the music concept was more restrictive than I'd personally like, and the execution of the theme at large was a bad idea. We still got some really imaginative minifigures, and a nice little parcel of new monsters, too. But geez...collecting the wave 2 monsters hurt. The combo of desirable detailed edgy minifigures and abrupt scarcity made it harder than it should have been to get them in my collection. I wish these were widely released so it wasn't so painful committing to them, because it was a brutal sell.
Banshee Singer (Bandmates Series 1)
This was the first Monster Metal figure I got, and of the two available at the time in Wave 1, was the one I wanted most. She's LEGO's second horror banshee (and arguably their third banshee overall after ghost-ninja Bansha in the Ninjago theme), and another green one (including Bansha), but more dark and vivid. A banshee makes perfect sense for a metal singer because banshees are known for shrieking, and it's fun to see a wicked screaming take on a banshee after getting a mournful sobbing one. I don't know if the Banshee Singer would be Irish or if this is a world where the species isn't pinned to one country.
This figure is brilliant to me for straddling the line of "horror monster" and "edgy musician" so perfectly that she perfectly plays either role. Her face looks like a sassy musician sticking out her tongue...or a ghost making a spooky face. Her antique chained costume could be a metal aesthetic, or it could very well be real ghost chains and the real old clothes she died in!
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| Her face makes me think of Megan Thee Stallion's signature "ahh". |
It's such a clever conceptual blend, and I love her colors and prints. Even her hair mold in the overused black color still works for her. The frizzy piled mold debuted for a character played by the White Helena Bonham Carter, but this character design could potentially be read as a Black ghost. Maybe it's the Megan in her face giving me that read.
While VIDIYO didn't offer second faces to its human-headed minifigures, they absolutely fired on all cylinders for the body prints.
I like her dark green/translucent Bright Green ghost tail colors.
The Banshee Singer has a silver-topped microphone for an accessory.
Her unique BeatBit tile is one of my favorites, emulating the green night-vision look of many a classic online "ghost-footage" video, and featuring a ghost with the Monster Fighters shroud sculpt.
I love the Banshee Singer. She's a perfect minifigure.
Werewolf Drummer (Bandmates Series 1)
This is the only post-Wolf Guy werewolf where I won't take points off for the Dark Grey fur color, because, while it is annoying how often this color has been used with lycans who have this head sculpt, at least the Werewolf Drummer does a lot of interesting things and stands nicely apart from the crowd! I'm also glad his eyes aren't vertically misaligned.
The Drummer's head print is great, with vertical markings above hjs eyes, and tbose eyes themselves being a really creepy glowy pale yellow color. (Not glow-in-the-dark). O also love his black and blue costume colors with a black jacket, teal shirt, and dark blue jeans. It's not the lumberjack woodsy vibe at all--great!
The print detail is fantastic. The legs have weathered detail where they're torn and the back of the jacket sports a werewolf metal logo. No legible text is used in the VIDIYO graphics, just approximations. Then again, metal logos are hardly known for legibility in the real world!
The Werewolf Drummer has a tail and his accessories are two short bones as drumsticks.
His BeatBit tile is simar to the design on the back of his jacket, depicting a howling werewolf in what looks like a plasma ball.
This isn't my number-one favorite LEGO werewolf, but he's high up there for daring to be memorable! His design has the rigjt touches to set him apart from other generic werewolves in pop culture and LEGO at large.
Slime Singer (Bandmates Series 2)
This one's inclusion in the discussion is my editorial choice. LEGO framed this character as an alien blob monster repping the ETDM music genre, but I was so reminded of The Blob and Hotel Transylvania's green Blobby that I adopted him into the horror collection. He fits ETDM on the basis of the Blob being an alien creature in the original 1958 film, but that's a horror movie, not a sci-fi film. This is a monster to me, not an alien.
I don't have his BeatBit anymore...at least I don't think I do. A good handful of my LEGO parts got lost or misplaced from my collection unnoticed sometime in the last year or earlier, with that tile being one of them. I don't need his back since this isn't a canon Monster Metal figure, but the tile had a print which looked like alien flora.
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| Leftmost tile was his unique one. |
The Slime Singer is half molded from translucent Bright Green plastic and half from opaque Lime Green, and the color and opacity disconnect isn't as distracting or sloppy as it might seem. LEGO has yet to mold full minifigures in translucent parts, but it might be viable with their newer translucent compound. Their original translucent plastic had the downsides of being too brittle and also way too tight against itself, so, say, if you slid a translucent bar through a translucent 1x1 cone brick, you were likely to have it stuck in there way too tight and be unanle to separate the parts. As such, molding full minifigure parts from the plastic would have made heads too hard to turn, legs inseparable, and potentially the shoulders would be too sticky, too. It's possible if the newer plastic worked, we'd have already seen a full translucent figure, so maybe there are other issues restricting the application of translucent parts.
The Slime Singer's head uses a new drippy slime-head mask piece in translucent Bright Green, placed over an opaque blank Lime Green head, and the face is printed on the slime mask, with gold ladder shades and a wavy mouth with some teeth and slime drips connecting the top and bottom "jaw".
This slime mask has been reused for some versions of Z-Blob in the Dreamzzz theme, but I think it'd be ideal for a minifigure-size rendition of Batman villain Clayface if it were cast in opaque dark-nougat brown. Clayface has only been rendered as large brick-built figures thus far. I'd also love a pink Minifigures equivalent to the Slime Singer who more closely invoked the movie Blob!
The rest of the Slime Singer's body is just green goo with no clothing, and the blend of colors and plastics, again, works better than it might seem (or photograph). The right arm and left leg are translucent Bright Green, and the leg has printing on the front to transition the lime in. I think the monster is very effective, and I appreciate the detailed goo printing, even if I wish it wrapped around both sides of the translucent leg. This is a rare VIDIYO figure who probably could have done more with the printing.
The specks in his print are metallic silver.
His accessories are a silver-topped microphone (I gave him a copy with a fully silver head when trying to relocate his accessories) and a grey boombox. I wonder what kind of singer he is. He's actually an EDM performer and I've brought him into the wrong group, so maybe he has a very autotuned singing style?
I have a lot of love for the Slime Singer just for ushering in a new monster/alien archetype. I hope to see more like him.
Vampire Guitarist (The Boombox)
This is the only Monster Metal figure who ended up in one of the few VIDIYO playsets, being part of the set "The Boombox". He's an interesting stylistic break for LEGO, looking different from many other vampires. He's got Aqua skin instead of the usual white, and his eyes are standard black, making him the second or maybe third male LEGO vampire with black eyes, depending on if the Spider Suit Boy counts. The Guitarist is styled a bit similarly to KISS or maybe Alice Cooper with that eye makeup, and his tongue-out expression and spiky pauldrons recall the former. On his torso, he has bite marks on the collarbone, which is a great touch--obviously, this is a "turned" vampire, but he's not a vampirized redesign of any living rock star minifigure we've seen before. Unlike select Series 14 monsters, there's no "backstory" minifigure to pair with him.
I love the vampire medallion on the chain necklace and the bat belt buckle. The outfit print also has very subtle muscle line detail.
The Vampire Guitarist and Vampire Bassist simultaneously debuted a new literal "axe guitar" sculpt, and both musicians have the same color and print for the piece.
The piece has a peg on the back like some other minifigure rock guitars, but the neck is too short to easily have one hand clipped to the neck and the other on the back bar.
There's one vampire BeatBit tile depicted in the Boombox set's stock images, so this is what I'm led to assume is "his" piece. It depicts a vampire on a motorcycle. The graphic almost looks like a hipper Studios Vampire, but doesn't match any specific existing minifigure.
Zombie Dancer (Bandmates Series 2)
I'm not sure how much sense a dancer makes in this genre. Backup dancers in metal don't feel like an established thing to me. Hip-hop? Absolutely. But metal? There might be a grave-dancing pun happening here, though.
The Zombie Dancer has lime green skin and shoulder-length black hair and a sweatband on his forehead. His face is very dopey-looking with a huge bean mouth with rounded teeth and a protruding tongue, while his eyes are yellow. Dark shading and spotting accents his face. He has red headphones as a neck accessory and wears a dark blue tank top adorned with a minifigure arm bursting from the grave, reminiscent of the Zombie Moonstone design. The top is ripped and reveals defined abs which clash with the style of his face, but maybe he's just a zombie himbo. His black jeans have a brain buckle and are tattered at one knee and one steel-toed boot cap is missing. He carries a printed tile depicting a mixtape with a brain design, and his back printing shows he's wearing a cassette design. The back of his top looks like it has implied tour dates on it.
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| He doesn't fully work bald because the sweatband isn't a 360-degree print. Otherwise, I'd prefer him without the hair. |
I don't know. I respect this design and its details even if the whole isn't fully for me.
His BeatBit tile depicts another arm in a grave, holding a mic.
Vampire Bassist (Bandmates Series 2)
We got a second vampire here, representing the ladies' side of the archetype. It's possible she was the one who bit the Guitarist, and their similar musical disciplines make them a good pair regardless. This is the more LEGO-typical of the two vampires, keeping to the stark-white skintone. She uses the wavy windblown hair introduced by the theme, cast in black with a red paint fade onto the ends. The hair is dynamic, but not always versatile due to the kinetic look, and its strange shape is awkward to place on a minifigure head when trying to align it over the head stud. The Bassist's head has a very sharp angular design with a fangy snarl and black minifigure eyes.
Her costume has a one-shoulder spiked pauldron and her torso depicts a very detailed red-and-purple corset with a black bat-wing collar.
The Bassist's wrists are both printed with black studded bands, and her left shoulder has a tattoo of a black heart with fangs, like a scarier Draculaura icon!
Here's the back print.
It's no surprise the Bassist is one of the more expensive figures from the theme. Who doesn't like an awesome edgy vampire lady with lots of print detail?
As mentioned, the Bassist's axe guitar is identical to the Vampire Guitarist's. Here they are together.
The Bassist's BeatBit tile depicts a Morticia-esque tentacle-dressed vampire lady with a hand fan, looking a bit like a flamenco dancer.
Metal Dragon (BeatBoxes)
This was the real "final boss" of the VIDIYO collection; the most expensive of them all. I ended up getting his whole BeatBox carry case set, since that wasn't any more expensive than most offerings for the figure solo. This was the only Monster Metal figure in the BeatBox line.
Dragons don't immediately come to mind as horror monsters, but they're a lesser icon of classic horror and Halloween and have their place in this crowd. This is LEGO's first pairing of dragons and horror since the Fright Knights theme, and he's the first horror dragon minifigure.
The Metal Dragon's name is not descriptive of his musical role, but he's evidently a vocalist judging by his silver-topped mic, and depicts a classic menacing red dragon in anthropomorphic form. The head sculpt and the wings debuted for VIDIYO, and the head has also appeared in LEGO's Dungeons and Dragons figures. The head has plenty of flat surface to allow for variable face print designs, and has two bar holes in the back for horn parts to insert into, letting different horn shapes be paired with the sculpt.
Orange print is used to give the Metal Dragon a spiky texture and a reptilian underbelly under his vest and tank top. He's as detailed as you can expect from the theme, with cuffs and/or tattoos on his wrists and intricate body printing.
Here's the wing sculpt from the back.
I like these wings. They could be fun for a taller, more imposing gargoyle figure if LEGO wanted to revisit that idea.
The Metal Dragon's special BeatBit depicts a minifigure made of cracked volcanic rock with molten material inside.
The appeal of this figure is obvious, and I'm happy to have him in my monster collection.
The Monster Metal Monster Stage
This is the only minifigure stand in this series I basically got right from the jump, with only minor tweaks, and it's also perhaps my favorite. It's funny because concerts and the music scene are not really my vibe, but I love what I did here.
The concept started with an archway that would look like a boombox with speakers on the corner and sides. I used girder pillars to clip dishes to and prop up the rectangular arch, and then I realized the speakers looked like eyes, so I added teeth under the arch to turn it into a monster face. Adding another set of teeth at the front of the stage platform completed the face with two "jaws" in an elegant fun twist that turned the stage into one big monster. Elevating the corners on short pillars also helped, making it look a bit like legs.
In the middle of the stage is a staircase for the Banshee Singer to stand on top of, with a jumper tile aligning her ghost tail. I build a drum set for the Werewolf Drummer, anchored on a skeleton torso with skeleton arms holding the side pieces.
He sits on a stool with the bones held horizontally forward. I built a flat doghouse prop behind him, and two tombstones on the sides of the stairs. A fence trims the back as well as chains hanging from the arch, with the long ones connecting to the top of the fencing.
On the other side is a platform for the vampires and a coffin prop behind them.
The middle has a strip for the Zombie Dancer and Metal Dragon to stand on.
Here's the gang assembled on the stand how I like them.
On the bottom edges of the arch and platform are brackets to hang the character-specific BeatBit tiles on as markers of the collection.
There were a few other spooky BeatBits in the theme's "random" mix which are not exclusive to these figures. I added them to the sides as bonuses.
On one side, I have a scene with will o' the wisps, and a tile with a mummy. LEGO seriously missed the opportunity to have a Mummy (W)rapper character in this theme.
On the other side is a tile with a goth girl in front of the moon and a skull who looks very much like the Vampire Guitarist--surprising that this isn't the tile assigned to him! It apparently can appear in copies of the Boombox set, but isn't locked or exclusive to it like the motorbike vampire tile.
I don't know what it is, but this stage display is so charming and dynamic and clean to me. I think I captured a music stage pretty well as well as the tone of Monster Metal.
Closing Thoughts on VIDIYO
Had VIDIYO been viable enough to continue instead of crashing during its second-wave rollout, we were about to receive a witch character in a third wave, possibly as part of the Monster Metal squad, though LEGO could have intended her for the Candy Pop genre per Hansel and Gretel theming, or the Fantasy Folk genre. You know, of course, that I'm devastated we never got the VIDIYO witch regardless. A Monster Metal witch would have had the highest chances of appealing to me because a Fantasy Folk or Candy Pop witch could be too generically pretty and cheerful, but any witch is better than none. The VIDIYO witch hat/hair mold was evidently produced because it was useful for other characters, with a new witch hat/hair piece debuting with distinctive wavy windblown hair sculpting that clearly marks it as the VIDIYO design that never was. It's sad the mold never got to be used on the character it was designed for! We'll be discussing a use of the sculpt soon.
Another thought: the Series 14 Monster Rocker figure could be considered an early entry to the VIDIYO theme, given he fits absolutely seamlessly with the Monster Metal group.
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| Two figures don't go here, but only one, the Slime Singer, might be guessable as the intruder. |
It's possible the Monster Rocker figure's existence is the reason a Frankenstein monster never joined VIDIYO's cast--such a figure would simply be redundant with the Monster Rocker! If the Monster Rocker wasn't attached to Series 14, I'd display him onstage with the VIDIYO monsters myself as an honorary entry. It's too important for me to keep Series 14 all together, though. Maybe a second copy of the Monster Rocker would be called for--and I never even wanted a first!
I'm also not really done with VIDIYO after this; there are plenty of other cool figures in the theme what with the fantasy, robot, and alien figures that are also in the collection. Another sequel I could do to this blog series would be a history of LEGO aliens, and then maybe one of LEGO robots and cyborgs, and VIDIYO would have two other genres to spotlight in those cases.
Back to the Minifigures Line
Now we catch up briefly to the present day. Later series of Minifigures will naturally expand the cast of horror figures, but this is where we stop at time of writing!
Series 25- Vampire Knight (2024)
This is a direct remake of Basil the Bat Lord, the overlord from the Fright Knights theme.
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| Photo of the classic Basil minifigure from Brickset.com. |
Unlike Willa the Witch in the same theme, the original Basil wasn't clearly classifiable in the monster crowd. Basil's redesign as the Vampire Knight...well, just look at the name. This one's a definite vampire!
This remake trades in standard human yellow for white skin and red eyes in typical LEGO vampire fashion, and adds detail to his prints. His cape is now red inside, and features the same detail as Basil, but more, on the back.
The other face of the Vampire Knight has an awesome two-toned red glow around his eyes like he's using magic. I like the way the glowing eyes fill the eyeholes in his helmet better.
I don't love the grey eye shadows on the other face because it makes the eyeholes grey. The figure would remind me more of the original Basil if there were higher contrast from the white skin inside the eyeholes, but the red does work great and the darker eyeholes give the helmet more of the feeling of a dramatic monstrous head. The helmet itself is a little sleeker, and doesn't have a stud on top anymore. I do miss that. The older helmet also more clearly mimicked the LEGO bat sculpt, a resemblance which is slightly lost with the Vampire Knight's.
The minifigure even has detailed back printing you won't see most of the time!
This is a slam-dunk of a design. He's awesome. Again, he makes me very hopeful a Willa remake is on the way. Preferably as a Minifigures release. Preferably in a LEGO Castle series!
Series 27- Bogeyman (2025)
This was naturally the high point of Series 27 for me--a generic furry horned boogity-boo nightmare monster of the type who frightens sleeping children! A LEGO monster in this style is much appreciated, and I love how he came out. His head piece is tall and pretty neckless, and his face is huge, with his head proportions giving him a really uncanny, eerie look on a minifigure frame--goofy in a perfectly wrong, eerie way. Being a blue furry horned monster might draw some comparisons to Sulley from Monsters, Inc., but this guy is significantly spookier with his midnight blue pelt, red eyes, huge fanged mouth, and generally less humanoid look. His bushy black brows and wide mouth give him an unclear expression, but it's not a sweet and charming one! My Bogeyman has a printing error with a second white mark in his left eye, but it's negligible.
The head mold is new to this figure and is mostly flat on front, potentially promising wider print variation for future minifigures with this mold, if LEGO can think of reasons to make any. The back has jagged fur texture.
The bull horns are new in Sand Blue, and the hands are also Sand Blue.
The Bogeyman's body pieces are nicely printed with fur lines in Sand Blue, including on his shoulderblades which are fully covered by his head. I love the sharp claws on his toes.
The Bogeyman's fur detailing is highly similar, but not in any way identical, to the Yeti's. The Yeti has a navel and his belly ends higher, while the Bogeyman's print implies a much longer belly hanging down to his knees. The Bogeyman has the sharp claws and shoulderblade print that the Yeti doesn't.
As mentioned, Squarefoot has far less printing.
The Bogeyman doesn't look all that much like the other two!
The Bogeyman's horns can be rotated if you so wish.
His accessory is fantastic--it's a scary storybook about himself, as if this is the spooky bedtime story a child hears and grows afraid of at night, and he is the monster from that scary book come to haunt them! I love the colors and prints here.
Very Babadook-coded. Maybe he's trying to be friendly, though, and tries reading it to kids for wholesome story nights while they just wish he would leave and take the scary book with him! While this is a character-specific accessory, it works well as a generic book of scary stories, and it's a better design (and the modern book pieces make for better function) than the book that came with the Spooky Boy.
That's that for the organized topics! We've closed out our full themes of monsters and now move onto miscellaneous LEGO horror entries. There aren't many posts left in this series now, though there's still a lot to discuss within them!
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