Picking Bones, Part 4: Did River Reap the Rewards?

Well, isn't this a poetic moment.

In G1 of Monster High, the Haunted animated special's most novel new character in terms of doll production was River Styxx, the ghostly reaper daughter of the Grim Reaper. 

River was set apart by her uniquely half-skeletal design that made her look like she had fading translucent skin revealing her bones, as if reapers lose their skin while they mature into full otherworldly skeletons. River did succeed the actual skeleton doll Skelita Calaveras, so we'd already been wowed by a total bone sculpt, but River's novelty was in the blend of skeletal and fleshy form, with a face designed to look like thin skin over bone and the lower halves of her limbs being translucent over encased bone sculpts. In the time since her doll, however, MH has tried multiple other bone-in doll gimmicks...and just revived the character with more bone-in pieces, claiming some of the techniques she likely inspired!

First, we need to look at River's lone G1 doll, representing her guest-star one-off turn as one of the new ghost characters introduced for the Haunted movie.

River's personality concept is that she's a pastel cutie who loves cheerful party aesthetics, being a stark contrast to the adjective her father wears in his name. She mixes a black cloak with otherwise bright colors, and as a Reaper in Preparation (R.I.P.), she carries a staff topped with a bow and chains, not a full-fledged scythe. I always had an interest in River, but never enough to get her sooner. I definitely should have. 

I wasn't entirely happy to be getting this doll now because her prices were very spicy, but leaving her out and only referencing images of her when discussing the newer doll felt improper, and River becoming a lesser novelty in the past decade of dolls doesn't mean she wasn't significantly innovative for the time. I got a complete copy sans stand and diary. I have a Haunted stand that'll work from getting Vandala last year. This River did have her Haunted hairbrush.

Here's my doll with the stand added.

River's name is a cute reference to the River Styx from Greek mythology. The Styx is one of the rivers of Hades, the underworld named for the god ruling it, and the souls of the newly dead are boated down the Styx by Charon the ferryman. MH River even knows Charon himself, referring to him as an uncle. As seen in the tale of Achilles, the Styx was able to grant invulnerability to a body that was immersed within it. Because baby Achilles was held out of the water by the heel, that piece of him never touched the Styx and was his one weak spot. Why mama Thetis couldn't have dunked him in fully and came out with an invulnerable boy plus an invulnerable wrist for herself, I don't know. It's the poetry of the myth for her to have not perfectly dipped him! Monster High River's name is cute, but it's always been a little unfortunate to me because...look, I don't mean this as any kind of aspersion toward the legitimate profession, but "River Styxx" looks like a goth stripper name. Multiple "X"es in a row are often used by adult entertainers and not everyday people, so it's a spelling choice that could get you profiled as working in a salacious industry. The connotation is there, and I'd have named River a bit differently. She's a kid's character. Her name could have conjugated and flipped around, like "Stygia Rivers" or something. 

The mythological connections to River might suggest that in the Monster High universe, the Grim Reaper could well be the same figure as the Greek god Thanatos, with Thanatos being the same basic concept and River clearly having Greek ties. Use of a sickle is also tied to some Classical deities who are not Thanatos. It's never explicit that River's dad is actually Thanatos, and maybe the two are separate entities, but it could make sense, especially since River gets Greeker with her second doll.

River arrived a little messy, with dry, damaged-looking hair. Her cape was had also been put on inside-out, with the hood seam on the exterior. I corrected that before photos.

The cape itself is a very simple sheer black fabric with a velcro closure around River's neck. The cape is translucent to fit the ghostly theme, though I can't help but think a more opaque cape might feel more impactful and provide stronger contrast with the pastel everything else. It's still a strong statement, with no other pure black in the design to balance it, but it's a large enough piece to pull it off and the contrast is intentionally stark. The cape has no hole in the back for hair to stream out, a true oddity for a Mattel fashion doll of this period, so it's a finicky operation to part her hair and pull the cape around her neck and then put the hood up so the hair comes out the front as intended. 

The short hairs of River's bangs can slide through the netting of the hood sometimes when pulling it back and forth, which is annoying.

The hairstyle is center-parted with straight bangs across the forehead which cover the brows, and the hair is wavy. It's rooted in layers, with cotton-candy blue on top, cotton-candy pink underneath, and pastel purple under both colors at the rear. This hair is very dry and looks fried, and the bangs look unflatteringly thick. It took me a bit to realize, but the fiber is obviously kanekalon, and might be forever past its best days. Fellow Haunted doll Kiyomi also had kanekalon hair, and was my most positive impression of the fiber at the time. I worry now that a Kiyomi in 2026 might fare much worse were I to try getting her back.

River's kooky pastel vibe definitely feels like a bit of a product of the 2000s and 2010s, where outlandish subcultural fashion grew in prominence with the internet and pop stars like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Nicki Minaj leaned into wacky eye-catching looks.

I'm also 100% certain this ghoul would have had an exceedingly "2015" Tumblr blog. I'd love that for her.

River's face sculpt is designed to look as if her ghostly skin is shrinking and fading away to expose the skull underneath--a super cool worldbuilding concept that suggests mature reapers look like pure bone while younger ones look like they have flesh, as if they mirror the decomposition of the dead they reap. River's head and torso core are all the Haunted frosty vinyl effect, and she's got purple skin, but her face paint and sculpt give hints of the skull being made more visible as River grows up.

River's nose has some very subtle paint darkening it in the shape of the nasal cavity peeking through fading skin, and this works better than fully-skeletal Skelita, who has a dimensional human nose with paint on it. Here, River's nose is meant to be literally still dimensional and translucent, so the nasal cavity pant isn't a cop-out for a scarier, more worthy face sculpt. River also has skeletal lines across her mouth, extending a bit past her lips, and her cheekbones are pretty defined while she is earless just like the MH skeletons. Guess the ears just fell off at some point prior to this stage in River's life?

River's face is pretty subtle and low-contrast, likely in keeping with the Haunted line's washed-out ethereal ghostly art style, though it could also be wise to keep it light with the doll's crazy colors elsewhere. She does have eyebrows under her bangs.

Her pupils also have hidden blue circular highlights filling them which are more visible when the light hits them, and they add an eerie shine at the right angle.

I like River's wide-eyed expression, and she's able to play creepy and sweet in equal measure.

River does not share Skelita's mold. Skelita has more defined bone contour since she has no flesh (nose shape excepting). Skelita's cheeks and browbones are more defined, and her lips are definitely a different shape.

River's purple skin is slightly darker than the blue and pink of her hair, though I'm not sure if River is meant to be non-white. There's no concrete coding to her character, as far as I can tell, so I'm not sure if she's meant to be giving Nicki (back when one might have actually wanted that comparison) or if it's a bit of a gyaru thing, or if she's just got pastel hair that ended up lighter than her skin and the designers didn't think much about it. I've seen discourse about the second River doll being darker, and I'm honestly not sure that's the case. Haunted isn't exactly the palest. Compared to a range of MH dolls more easily considered white-coded, River is the darkest, and is definitely in the dark range next to fellow purple ghoul Twyla.

If anybody claimed River as a Black character, I'd understand that, though it's not really textually confirmed and she could be from numerous other backgrounds as well.

Around her neck, River has a clip-on pink chain necklace with the first of her many bow motifs. This is technically meant to encircle the neck of her cape, but functionally, is very ill-suited to do so, not sitting well and not being able to fully wrap around the back of the neck. It's easier and better to put it around the bare neck under the cape. Tight doll necklaces have no business clipping around fabric neck wraps.

River's dress is a sleeveless piece with a flouncy hem, and the pattern is a rainbow pastel tie-dye effect with iridescent foil abstract patterns on top. Depending on the copy, this dress could look very different based on how the fabric was cut and what part of the pattern showed where. I'm happy with mine!

River's big chain accessory is a waist belt, which has a huge bow made of chains on the back which trails longer chain strands behind. River's custom chain links are bow-shaped, but I think they're also deathly hourglass-shaped! I never realized this doll was blurring the two images before, but she must be.

The belt works in an interesting way. It's two pieces, with the bow and long chains being a separate element. The belt closes with a peg and hole, with the peg facing outward and being extra long. Once the belt is closed, the bow pops onto the part of the peg that's still sticking out. The bow has a tab on the side that sits flush with the end of the belt to let you know which way it goes and keep the bow aligned upright.

The doll has a bracelet on each wrist. On her right, she has a mint chain loop with a Skullette charm.

This would be a pretty great replacement for 13 Wishes Twyla's appropriative dreamcatcher bracelet. The color is just right. I just don't think I can spare it.

On the other wrist, River has a blue bangle with a bow design, with the color matching her hair.

River's boots have chain accent wraps that match her belt, but they're one piece each. I love that they have an actual tight closure on the back rather than just clipping on. They can fit snug and secure!

The base boots are translucent, which is just the way Haunted does things, but it's especially perfect for River, whose bones can be seen even through her boots! The boots have bow designs on the top front, and scythe-blade heels.

River doesn't have an actual scythe blade because that probably violated a weapons taboo or made her too scary for the intended audience, so she carries a staff topped with a purple bow-and-chain accent instead. The pole has a handle on the side, and River's hand is pretty darn secure there. Only the weight of the staff and weakness of her joints poses any issue, and even then, the base of a doll stand or her other arm can brace it. The staff doesn't fall off her hand, though.

The topper of the staff is molded the same on both sides, so there's no set front or back to the staff and River can easily display with it in either hand as an ambidextrous accessory. That's really great.

River's body type is the little-sister size, and her lower arms, hands, and legs are unique molds for her bony effect. Her lower limbs are truly translucent rather than frosty, and encased in her lower arms and legs are white bone pieces, while her hands have bone paint on the back instead. River's joint pegs are also cast white where it counts.

I think the legs are the most visually impressive.

The hand bones aren't exceptionally detailed, but they might be slightly heart-shaped for effect. The hands work differently, as, while they pop off, the joint peg is left in the wrist, not in the hand. This is the only Monster High doll like this.

The wrist pegs seem to be the same piece as the encased bone in the arms, so they do not rotate. This makes River's wrist articulation work differently, since her hand rotates on the hinged peg, but the hinge itself cannot rotate relative to the forearm. It creates a bit of awkwardness and limitation, but River's articulation isn't badly dampened by this. 

Here's River after some hair treatment for shaping and tidiness. It's not perfect, but it feels much more like kanekalon than it did when she arrived to me, and the billowy hair is proper. I think River might be the best Haunted doll for display. Her staff and cape are really dynamic, and the way the staff can interact with the "floating" doll stand makes the stand more fun than it was with the other dolls.

You could almost imagine her using the staff pole as her boat steerage in lieu of it being able to reap souls. You could ford the Styx with that thing, I'm sure.

River is a cute doll. It's hard not to find her a little basic in the year of 2026, given the designs she inspired, but as a quirky character design of an enthusiastic 2010s pastel girl clashing with the gravitas expected of her as a reaper-in-training, she's fun. She fits a very defined niche of the period in a nostalgic sense for me today, and she might be one of the most successful designs in the Haunted template. The pastel colors feel entirely purposeful for her style and character, as opposed to less reasoned choices in Vandala or Kiyomi, and her chains are also used well. Haunted generally had pretty good accessories, and I'd love to reacquire and talk about Porter sometime too, and it's clear with River's sturdy staff handle and its posing potential that the piece not being a scythe isn't really an issue. I do still think her cape feels overly simplistic and not the best meshed with the design. More opacity would be nice, or a bit of polish there somewhere. The bone gimmick River debuted is also pretty strong. The translucent lower limbs are the showstopper, but I really appreciate the subtleties with her face being made to look like the skin is thinning over the skull, too. Her hair hasn't aged the best, but it can look pretty good. Of my second-era collection, this is the best Haunted doll experience I've had. I haven't had the Twyla I reviewed for ages now, and Vandala was fundamentally underwhelming until I repainted her. I'd like to see about Kiyomi and Porter someday, but the market is atrocious right now and those dolls aren't priorities. Porter might come first if/when that happens because I like his factory look generally, and had success shaping his hair to match the intended look with my old copy.

Kiyomi is lovely, but I'm not sure how much I love or disagree with aspects of her design.

River is ultimately a delight to put on the shelf. She stands out with her colors and she makes the floaty display of the Haunted dolls very dynamic and appealing. Vandala lost her doll-stand privileges. River needs it! I'm glad to finally cross her off my ancient teenage wishlist. 

Now, River is as much of an innovator as she is a frustration. Her concept is so cool, but it felt like there was potential to go further. And we saw other explorations of River's concept in the meantime. The Inner Monsters have translucent body plates over skeletal cores like River could have had-- River's could be nonremovable plates, and I think a more mobile standard neck anchor could be built into the skeleton core (the Inner Monsters are built with static neck knobs offering only swivel rotation).

Then, the Off-White collaboration included Symphanee Midnight, with the wild "can't-miss" gimmick of a translucent vinyl head over a plastic skull!

Symphanee, though, has no more bone-in pieces, and the rest of her is emptily translucent, with white joint pegs possibly being a token effort at looking more bony.

The bizarre black "widow's peak" paint patch on her forehead might be a sloppy cover for a visual flaw in the assembled doll, as pictures of the outer head wiped of paint appear to show a dark spot on the forehead. I've seen a picture of the skull outside the head and there's no dark hole in the forehead, but with the paint wiped while the compound head is assembled, it sure looks like there is.

Symphanee's skull removed. There's a boundary between the skull and scalp, but nothing suggesting the doll needed the forehead paint.

And yet...(Photo of Symphanee's head skin wiped of paint, taken by the absurdly talented dolljunk on Tumblr.)

I feel like rooted hair ought to have filled that same space and if paint was necessary, this design should have been put on hold until it was confirmed there would be no blemishes to this display. I've become less tolerant of Symphanee's forehead paint since I got her, but it's disappointing that she might have no way of looking good without it.

It's arguable even G3 Skelita (where in the nine realms is she????? She was supposed to be the part 4 of this blog series!!!) counts for this tradition of bone-in dolls, as her lower torso, under the bust joint, is encased in a clear shell to fill her clothing. It's an optically good move for a play doll that I hate on an aesthetic level as a fan of the body sculpting in this brand, and I fully intend to break the shell off a copy of G3 Skelita to see how she fares...once she hits the US. Sometime. Within this year, please...hello???

G3 Skelita's torso shell is purely practical aesthetics to pad out her clothing, though, and is truly meant to be disregarded and seen as invisible, rather than being intended as a digetic "transparent skin" element of her character design. Still, her nonremovable translucent casing felt like something that could be used for a full torso.

So after all this, I've been wondering--when's a fully "bone-in" ghost doll gonna be made? Or at least, bones in all but the hands? (Those could be way too difficult.) We've seen proof of concept on the lower limbs and the torso and the head. Are we gonna combine those at any point, get an ultimate doll?

Well, isn't it perfect that River came back to claim at least one of the innovations in her wake? 

Rumors of River's return were going strong for a while, though I was curious why. She wasn't ever that prominent, though if G3 could bring back comparable one-off character Mouscedes for the cartoon, it could bring back River for dolls. I was excited by the prospect of her being a G3 doll, but before seeing G3 Robecca, I worried a G3 revival of the character would cost her the gimmick. I didn't expect a G1 collector doll instead, and certainly didn't seriously think that she would reclaim her gimmick as the most complex out of any of her own successors! 

This is Skullector River Styxx.

She's got the Symphanee skull technique. She's got complete leg bones. She's got more realistic hand bones; the one thing I was sure she wouldn't! She's also riding a more mature mystical-fantasy theme with some gravitas. She's no longer pastel and she carries a real blade now!

I did give pause from the get-go, however. River's costume seemed to conspicuously cover her torso and upper arms in a way where it wasn't clear if she was a total bone-in doll or not. I really hoped she would be, but I tried not to marry myself to the vision because I was put on alert by the cut of her clothing.

The box sets a poor impression. It's larger than it needs to be, despite being trapezoidal. 

The doll is clearly presented in a large window, but the backdrop visuals of the box are ruined by being AI imagery, a credible accusation which came out after I'd made the purchase. Realistically, boycotting Mattel dolls for use of AI images is not going to be effective, and I recommend sending a message directly with customer service or product review complaints lambasting the process, because those have a chance of being directly heard. If it's a personal deal-breaker for you and you refuse to buy just for your own sense of satisfaction, I respect that, but I don't think it's realistic to expect that to be influencing change on Mattel's part.

On the wall inside the box is a blister packaging bubble creating an hourglass full of iridescent white glitter, which can fall between chambers when the box is flipped. 

I find this absolutely inane and wasteful and it adds zero value. Before seeing the product in person, I'd assumed this was actually a useless toy "for you!" hourglass thrown into the package, which would have been insulting in a different way, since that would be far too kiddie for the intended audience and would saddle the buyer with something they didn't want, but even just having this as a throwaway package gimmick is offensive to me because it's a total waste of materials and makes the box harder to recycle. Trying to remove the bubble is an easy invitation to be blasted with glitter if you're not very careful about peeling it open from the back and dumping it out. The bubble does have a plastic back wall, but it comes off in a separate piece that can lead to mishaps if unaware. Horrible idea by the packaging designers. I guess it could be worse by being fine-grained microscopic glitter, which is genuinely one of the most evil inventions ever.

The same side of the box has the text copy, rather than the back, which is photo portraits. 

Shouldn't it be "party of the millennium?" Using the plural here doesn't make sense. It's like when people talk about "a phenomena". Annoys me to no end.

Sparkles.

The text, explains that this doll shows River upon her official graduation to reaperhood, thus why she's finally able to carry a scythe, and overall explaining the more weighty, mature visual aesthetic of this character design compared to the G1 doll. The doll's skin has faded much more, but River's body type has not been changed to the more mature mid-teen size, so I'm not sure how much she's meant to have grown since Haunted. I think making her a mid-teen doll might have opened up a major opportunity (more on that later), but maybe she's just predisposed to be small and her body isn't going to change. She'd also likely be pure bones if she were fully mature, so maybe this is River at the moment of her coming-of-age, rather than her being an older adult. It reminds me of several Ever After High dolls which depicted the characters in hypothetical future scenarios fulfilling their destinies after leaving the high-school life behind.

The back of the box insert has the certificate of authenticity.

River's doll stand is hidden entirely under her billowing cloak in the packaging, but it's the same loose leg-grip saddle as the Xenomorph had, just with a clear pole and clip. The clear pole can be pushed down or pulled up inside the black part to adjust its height. For the Xenomorph (and I believe the Skullector Corpse Bride), this stand was used just for the drapery of the costumes to shine, plus the Xeno has a tail in the way, but for River, I think it also allows her to be displayed in a floating pose!

The stand works very well with the doll for foot-on-ground or floating poses, and her cloak's drapery is grand enough to hide the base at many angles, lending to easy "freestanding" photo staging, which I love. This stand added to the Xenomorph but didn't strike me as hugely notable, while the non-adjustable version used by Skullector Scarah has been donated to upcoming review subject Lenore Loomington, as it serves the same floaty drapery benefits for her as the style does for River, and the stand didn't suit Scarah at all.

Here's the doll, making a much better impression than her packaging.

I'm not sure River is equivalent to the Xenomorph, but she might end up the biggest visual "wow" from Monster High collector releases this year, the same way the Xeno was for 2025. She's so dramatic!

River here has shifted her palette a la G3 Twyla or Lenore Loomington, with greenish blue and purple and dark blue for the typical "moody magical" palette Mattel likes so much, with lots more black as well. She's quite menacing and officious in this reaper garb! She's no longer pastel, and I've heard disappointments there, from fans who wanted her to retain her absurd deathly and cutesy contrast, but I can respect this as a version of River who has matured in multiple aspects--having more of her skin fading away, becoming a full-fledged reaper, and making her look more serious. I don't think you need to become less whimsical as you grow up. Clearly. But I do enjoy seeing characters be reinterpreted as they grow older, to see what they change and retain alike, and I see this River as Monster High finding the venue to take the Grim Reaper archetype more seriously than they were allowed (or allowing themselves) to in the G1 playline. I love to see the darker, moodier, monsters in the collector dolls!

River's cape has upgraded to a full cloak, with sleeves and a cut that hugs around the front as an open robe. There's no closure around the neck this time. The fabric is iridescent metallic teal/purple overlaid with black irregular netting, and is metallic silver on the inside, while black lace trims the edges.

Something about the laciness of this costume gives it a charming antique delicate style, perhaps Victorian, perhaps a bit Slavic even, though the latter doesn't at all seem intentional. I think it's because the hood sits slightly more like a structured bonnet, with that similarity enforced by the lace trim. It's like some of the pieces in Robert Eggers' Nosferatu. It's very pretty. The cloak is not tailored tight to the waist, and it can sit tucked aside a bit to show the layers underneath, or the cloak can be pulled more over River's body, with her metallic chestpiece clipped on over it rather than under to bring it a bit tighter.

The cloak is a very dramatic piece, but it has strange sleeves. There's the ones that enclose River's arms normally, but then there's some elastic loops on her wrists, placed after the bracelets on the wrists, and these hold separate non-enclosed drapes of the creepy lace parallel to River's arms. They're very strange pieces of the cloak. Perhaps the intent is for them to drape along and below her arm like a cape effect, but it's a little clumsy.

Elastic loop holding the flap of netting to River's wrist.

The drape piece hanging loose from the arm.

River has jewelry across her forehead in the form of a silver headband. Immediately, Greek motifs are visible with a laurel sculpt and a dangling coin, as if symbolic of the "fare to the Underworld" coins buried with Ancient Greek bodies. River's personal Skullette is also in the sculpt.

I left the factory tags holding the band to her scalp at the ends, but removed the elastic wrapped around it. This piece didn't seem likely to stay put if I fully removed it. I think it's an awesome bit of costuming, making her feel like an ancient steward of the rites of death. River wears this kind of jewelry far better than G3 Spectra did.

The cloak's hood does have the Mattel-standard hair cutout in the back, unlike Haunted...and I'm delighted to say River's hair is luscious.

It's the same wonderful soft fiber I observed on M3GAN (is it nylon?) and I'm so glad this is not another Mattel doll with inexcusably-fried saran right out of the box. The hair is longer than before, and curled more at the bottom, but the colors are basically unchanged. Blue just feels even more prominent.

River's hair has no bangs, seemingly as a point. The hair seems to be boastful in its center-parted shape, as if the doll is proudly showing off that Mattel got the skull gimmick right this time and didn't need to cover the forehead with something ugly and awkward! Even the forehead chain is open in the middle. The forehead does seem pretty dark behind River's skin, but not in the sense that it looks blemished or in error the way wiped Symphanee apparently looks. The hair in front is cut short, center-parted, and gelled into backward swoops which are sewn down to the hair behind them, but it feels like they're not tight against the scalp.

This doesn't appear to match the photos on the back of the box, which seem to show the locks loose and curved forward in a bob silhouette. You can see the ends of the hairs here by her jawline.

I definitely like the way the produced doll is styled. The hair shape suits her Grecian tones really nicely. The ends of the curls are a bit thick and messy, and I'd have preferred maybe longer locks of hair that were braided together in the back for a tidier look. The long hair can be tactically combed to fall over the short tied hair to flatten and hide the ends, though, so there's no real problem.

It is not very easy to get River's hair back through the hood gap when re-dressing her. It has to be twisted so it sticks out the back of her head and then grabbed in tube form through the hood gap and pulled through. It might be easier to do that before putting her arms in the sleeves.

River's face is like Symphanee's--thinner translucent vinyl with a hard plastic deep-relief skull core inside. 

It's a very cool effect, as ever, and I think it's more dramatic on River because the white skull contrasts the purple exterior face better. With Symphanee's pale soda-green skin, the white skull kind of just turned the whole head white rather than looking like two colors interacting. The two ghouls appear to have subtly different skull molds. I'm not sure if Skullector River's face sculpt is the exact same as Haunted's. With this new gimmick, it's really hard to read the external sculpt! Skullector River doesn't have a mold stamp on the vinyl piece of her head, probably because it's too thin to stamp, so it's got to be a remold if not a resculpt.

River's eyes have a more focused gaze and are a bit narrower and smaller, suiting the idea of her maturing. Her eyes and makeup also cover a bit less real estate than Symphanee's did on her face, so the sculpted skull hollows underneath aren't fully wasted. Her lips are purple and she has longer skull lines extending past her mouth, but I don't know if this is necessary, given that her actual teeth are visible through her skin, and the lines don't match to them. The purple color of the Skullector doll is more saturated and might be ostensibly darker, but the white bones inside average it back out to the same shade as her Haunted doll, so I wouldn't exactly call this doll a darker color. She's still definitely not super pale.

Strangely, Skullector River's nose is painted with the same nasal-cavity design idea as before, just darker, despite there being a real cavity behind it. Her skull cavity seems pretty dark behind there, too. Symphanee's transparent nose doesn't clearly show the cavity on the skull through it, so I could understand painting her nose, but River doesn't seem to need the help! Her layer face is still incredibly pretty and the inset skull effect never fails to wow me.

Here's River and Symphanee together.

It's subtle, but the edge contours of their skull hollows are different.

Symphanee's skull worked without painting skull features in the faceup, but River's skull is arguably more spooky and well-utilized despite the needless skull faceup features.

I say, keep 'em coming! This is an awesome gimmick and the more dolls with it, the more opportunities fans will have to get one that has it. I'd love to see this on a boy doll too, but I'm not kidding myself. I just think a boy doll's lighter face paint might balance the skull and outside faces the best. 

River has symmetrical Greek-medallion earrings which pierce through both layers of her head, just like Symphanee's. Skullector River, however, appears to be the first earless MH doll to have ear piercings and normal doll earrings! Hers just go right into the sides of her head.

Ouch.

Previously, Dia de Muertos 2025 Skelita affected the appearance of earrings with dangling ornaments clipped onto the sides of her headdress, but her skull was unpierced.

Here's River wearing everything except the cloak. I think this works, and it lets her Classical hairstyle shine. This feels like River's Underworld-palace casual attire.

Over her chest, she has a purple vac-metal chrome clip-on which has a rib contour and filigree, with waist chain flairs on the side. This is meant to clip over her torso, under her cloak, but as seen above, can easily clip over the cloak to hold it more closed over her body.

It reminds me of some Boo York pieces.

Under the clip-on, River is wearing a leotard bodysuit and a separate skirt, all in blues and black. The bodysuit has a blue net high collar with a decorative choker sewn on which features a silver coin brooch. This is sewn with a bar loop on the back, so the coin can "hinge" like a door back and forth and look misaligned.

The bodice is metallic light blue which matches River's hair. The skirt has a black band which creates a point upward on the torso, and is layers of net and tulle. The legholes of the bodysuit are trimmed with black net.

River's wrists have matching bracelets of black chain with purple painted bows.

Finagling the bracelets as well as the elastic loops of the wrist drapes is a bit tricky...made harder with the hourglass accessory which also needs to be put around River's wrist before her hand pops into place. I think it's made much easier if you slide the loops on before the bracelets, so the bracelets can keep the loops from sliding off the wrist before the hand is inserted. The packaging had the loops after the bracelets.

River's shoes are awesome, mixing Greek/Roman architectural motifs with chains and bones, as if abstractly depicting an Underworld temple built from remains in the style of the world above. Their style also keeps from obscuring the internals of her feet too much.

River's scythe is everything it should be. It's elegant, it's wicked, and it's still River. Her Skullette is on the top. This is not an ambidextrous accessory, and is intended to be in River's left hand.

It has one finger-sized loop on the back. The plastic bow wrapped around the pole makes it a bit fiddly to use. While the most natural finger to slide the loop around is her index, it's most secure around her thumb and the ribbon doesn't get in the way.

While the ribbon and chain aren't the most friendly when trying to use the finger loop, they can provide weaker impromptu handle loops for different poses with the scythe.

I was really nervous about the fact that River's costume covered her upper arms and torso, leaving it possible this was not the full bone-in phenomenon I wanted. The skull, the forearms, the hands...yes. But you've seen the upper arms.

Time to pop the balloon. Not everything. 

How was this allowed to (not) happen???

They've done a fully enclosed torso skeleton, and it should be so easy to make a typical neck joint with that idea. It makes the skeleton chestplate feel like a rotten joke, like "welp, we didn't give you ribs in the doll, so here you go, hope you don't notice-"

This is why aging River up to mid-teen size would have been a smart idea, since it would align with the story of her becoming a mature reaper and becoming more translucent, while also giving Mattel a clearly proven base to modify for a bone-in torso gimmick--more of the work would already be done, compared to designing the same for the little-sister frame. Not that I want Mattel to be lazy. And how are the upper arms not part of the gimmick, either??? What the actual Tartarus. Why is this not the ultimate bone-in doll? 

At this rate, it's never happening, is it? A hypothetical G3 River could possibly be on par with Skullector River if Mattel dared, but would realistically be much closer to Haunted River gimmick-wise, and I'd be gobsmacked if a G3 doll had the ultimate bone inlay I've been waiting for in G1 releases. So what now? Do we keep waiting to see if Mattel finds reason to do a third inset-skull doll and actually complete her this time? Are they teasing this idea out slowly until we get a full doll like this, or have they just stopped and decided Skullector River was the most they could possibly do? Because I don't believe that for a second. Mattel are the best playline doll sculptors and innovators out there. Factory engineers, not so much, but designers? Yes. River represents some awesome strides in design, but I know Mattel has the aptitude, as well as the proof of concept in other dolls, to have filled River's body entirely with bones. Why we couldn't get that is completely beyond me. 

What's there is good. All of the joint pegs are white for theme, and the hands are a big step forward, with internally molded core hand bones this time. There's no phalanges and they spared paint for any bone visuals, which is okay. That could have looked too cheesy and discordant. It was fine on the playline doll, but here, painted bones might make me more disappointed.

Despite the white ball popping out of the hand element, it's part of the hand, not the arm. These hands pop out and pose exactly like any other MH hand. They found a way to make a removable pin in the socket on the arm's bone, and with the internal molded hand bones, popping the hand off the joint was not going to be possible, anyway. I appreciate that Skullector River found parity in the hand construction.

The legs look good too, with the upper legs now part of the party.

Dang, though...

It feels like a tease and a cheat. Sure, she's the most thorough bone-in doll to date. Her hands are pretty awesome, the skull is wonderful, and the complete legs are great. But I don't blame any person who saw all of her stock photos and expected or hoped for the doll to be a full X-ray. Were Mattel banking on this being a collector doll many people would never unbox, let alone undress? Were River a playline fashion doll, I doubt she'd be allowed to release with obvious gaps in her gimmick, since most outfits would make it clear her skeleton is incomplete. Haunted got away with that by making it stylistic, giving her varied degrees of translucency and using clever paint so they only had to apply the gimmick to the lower limbs. Skullector River is entirely translucent and wants to appear completely X-rayed, so there's no justification for the spots where she isn't. She's really lucky I love her full display so much, because if she wasn't so enchantingly dramatic in her cloak and dress, I'd riot.

Let's scrape back a little joy, because I think the thing that genuinely surprised and impressed me most was River's other accessory--her reaper's hourglass. 

Hourglasses are an iconic symbol of death and time running out and are a major image of the Haunted story and dolls, as magic boogey sand hourglasses transformed the "solids" in the main cast into ghosts for the visit to the ghost realm. River's bow motif also blurs into an hourglass one. It's no surprise to see River with the real deal as an official reaper...but it is surprising that it's really real, inasmuch as it's actually functional! The plastic chamber is filled with actual purple sand, and the glass swivels on an axis to be inverted, just like a real fancy mounted hourglass. 

River's glass actually takes only 10 seconds or so to fully drain into the opposite chamber, but as somebody fully trained to accept a static ornamental glass piece, having the rotation and real sand was actually delivering the awe that the incomplete bones had kind of sucked out of the affair. And it's way better than the absurd packaging hourglass. Good accessory. Maybe one of the best in Monster High ever. I only wish it had flat caps so it could stand on a table. It also could have been cool if her scythe had a hook on its top to attach the hourglass to. I also wouldn't mind a finger loop on top or a wider handle so River's hand didn't need to pop out to hang her lantern securely on her arm.

I'm reminded of Haunted Rochelle's large hourglass accessory, which was actually a charm on a "for you!" bracelet. Rochelle was a deluxe doll like the debuting characters, rather than a slim-box like the rest of the ghost-transformed students, and is much harder to come by, being one of the most inaccessible playline releases from MH on today's aftermarket. I think her hourglass is a static piece with dual-molded plastic in the chamber simulating flowing sand inside, so River's piece is doing much more while being fully intended for the doll to use.

Then I set to taking pictures. I declined to take any Pepper's Ghost photography because River is already partially transparent and making the whole doll transparent laid over photo scenes as a ghost would be diluting her visual too much, and would take more effort than I wanted at the moment. The Skullector doll was something I clicked with on a different level from Haunted, so I felt much more directed and confident and inspired with the newer doll, but the original gave me some good work too.

This would definitely be on her aesthetic blog in 2015 Tumblr days.

Then I zeroed in in Skullector. She made me very glad I still have the plaster Greek column prop. I rarely use it, but had I gotten rid of it, I'd be kicking myself now.

It's my regret that I have no river scenery around me. A body of fresh water accessible to me would be wonderful for multiple doll shoots. 

I took the cover photo at night.

Blacklight doesn't react with the Skullector doll the way I'd like (which would be illuminating the bones in contrast against the skin). The skin and bones basically both glow, but it's still striking!

Then I got back to the Skullector doll displays.

Love this picture.

Here's some pieces with River playing on a more Victorian theme with her silhouette. She feels like she could be part of an old folk tale.

And some glamor shots of her reclining while her own cloak fills the frame as a curtain.

Here she is against some ironwork that matched her scythe.

She's literally not perfect and I'm still mad at her release for a few reasons...but simultaneously, she's perfection.

I swing wildly with my thoughts on the Skullector doll. Pre-release, I was very hyped. Before getting the doll, the wind fell out of my sails when I learned about the probable AI imagery and the incomplete bone gimmick, and I was also insulted by the hourglass in the packaging. River has a problem with BS. There's quite a bit of it with her. I'd expected her to be the coolest MH doll of the year, but she doesn't earn it nearly as well as the Xenomorph last year, since the Xeno went all the way with her concept and River definitionally does not. And yet...River has something irresistible about her. I think she just might be the MH visual stunner of the year in the way the Xeno was for 2025. Her gimmick isn't complete and her packaging is offensive, but she's enthralling on display with her foreboding reaper's garb and perfectly imposing tone, while the bones are visible where they count and elevate River's look to a more Gothic dimension. She's absolutely fantastic on display, looks good even without the cloak that gives her so much presence, and she really is the Grim Reaper doll the brand deserves. I also think she's the best bone-in doll we have, despite not being the best bone-in doll I know Mattel are capable of making. River's gimmick kind of outmodes the Haunted doll and Symphanee simultaneously, since she does it better than both, with more grace. I loved Symphanee, and don't dislike her now, but that widow's peak is no longer negligible to me and learning she may be out of luck if you remove the paint hurts her further. River got it right by having no forehead issues, while her coloring gives the encased bones some more dramatic and spooky contrast.

One of the best aspects a doll can have is the ability to display many different ways that look incredible. When I can't keep a doll in one display for very long because I keep finding different displays and cannot pick a favorite, she's won. Skullector River is one of those dolls.

And comparing her to the Xenomorph is interesting, because, while the Xenomorph is the more artistically complete execution of an idea, I think I might like Skullector River more on a personal level. The Xeno is a badass piece of doll art that I'm very proud to own, but I almost respect her more on an academic sense with time, while River connects more closely to my personal aesthetics. Xenomorphs aren't necessarily soulful characters, so that might be the disconnect for me--I like personality first and foremost, but River might have a leg up on last year's GOAT if we're talking about vibes.

The doll quality isn't bad, either. Her hair is the nicest fiber Mattel uses, and the accessories are pretty fantastic. The hourglass is to die for. I'm also impressed with the contributions to the bone-in gimmick that River does introduce. Her sleeve drapes are a bit strange, but the design is overall impressive and elegant and ominous. She does everything to deliver on the idea of River coming into her lineage. This doll is not deficient of effort and art...it just sure sucks that she's tied to several aspects which are.

I'm not sure why Mattel brought back River Styxx. It's an out-of-left-field choice, and they could hardly have changed the tone between dolls any more.

Maybe it was the advancement of bone-in gimmicks after all which drove Mattel to revisit their progenitor with their new capabilities and...yeah, hey, missed a couple spots there. As well as the perfect opportunity to make River Styxx both the inception and completion of this gimmick. But even if Mattel didn't leverage the reason to revive River to its greatest extent, I'm still so glad they did. Skullector River is a frustrating absolute stunner and the stunning wins out for me. She also drove me to induct a wonderfully characterful G1 original doll into my collection after years of interest. Only one of these ghouls is the spooky reaper I have subconsciously wanted from this brand, but only one of these ghouls is a cheerfu, dynamic 2010s time capsule wrapped in a candy-colored bow. You can't really go wrong with River, can you?