Monster High Pride isn't over with Spelldon and Valentine! Mattel dropping a pretty darn genderqueer licensed horror character during June simply couldn't be coincidental, and I saw what they were doing! I love my queer dolls, and I love having multiple to celebrate for Pride in one year. I had a lovely time in 2025 with Welcome Committee Frankie and the Witch Weaver. The Weaver was a '24 release in autumn which I selected for last June, but Mattel did have two covert Pride releases last year with Frankie and Elvira v2. I just didn't get Elvira. Shame on me, I know.
But what about Gozer?
Ghostbusters hardly needs any introduction. It's a pillar of eighties male nerd culture, for better, and, quite visibly, for worse. It's a classic deadpan horror comedy with the novel approach of treating ghosts as a scientific matter rather than a spiritual one. It's not one of my favorite movies, but its supernatural creatures are pretty iconic and I always loved the monsters. Gozer here makes a great if-you-know-you-know Pride Skullector doll.
In the lore of Ghostbusters, Gozer (the Gozerian, the Destructor, and other titles) is a Sumerian destroyer god and the prime antagonist. Gozer is channeled by the NYC apartment building central to the first film thanks to its architect Ivo Shandor being an occultist who worshipped Gozer and designed the building to attract spiritual power. (Gozer is not a real mythological figure and was invented for the film.)
Gozer's summoning ritual could be described as very sexually and gender-normative, as the god's male and female demon lieutenants open the dimensional doorway by possessing a man and a woman and having sex in those bodies. Despite this, the Ghostbusters encounter the master god itself in an androgynous femme humanoid form. Gozer is perceived and referred to as female as such, but there's some understanding in the text that Gozer can be whatever it pleases, and Gozer is established to also be referred to as male, at least in reference to past events, allowing for easy interpretation of Gozer as fluid or nonbinary despite the text not quite going there. (From the writers and time period, I'd hardly expect that conception of the god's gender.)
Gozer, once met and challenged, then allows the Ghostbusters to choose the form which will be the Destructor of New York City. Softhearted and goofy Ray Stantz assigns Gozer the seemingly harmless form of the Stay Puft marshmallow-man advertising mascot from the fictional brand briefly seen in the film, conjuring a titanic and oddly terrifying version of the marshmallow man (made of actual marshmallow!) as Gozer's new form.
Gozer and its/their androgynous humanoid form return in the belated sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife, where it's explicitly stated that Gozer is neither male nor female, and one of the teen protagonists reacts with the sentiment that that's pretty woke for 3,000 BC. (The boomer OG Ghostbusters team still treat Gozer as female, which could be seen as invalidating the nonbinary lens on the character, but honestly, it just feels like the most realistic writing/performance choice for the OG team. I'd be way more surprised if Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were suddenly calling Gozer "they", much as I'd personally like to see it, and if the actors insisted on using she/her pronouns rather than the script assigning that choice to them, I wouldn't be that surprised.)
One line from Gozer's lieutenant Vinz Clortho says Gozer "arrives in a pre-chosen form" which could imply its welcome avatar is whatever the last victims chose for its Destructor form, and that the next chosen Destructor becomes the form Gozer will meet its following victims with, though Ghostbusters: Afterlife indicates the humanoid avatar is Gozer's baseline, not that the humanoid form was someone's prior choice for its Destructor form. While Mini-Puft Marshmallow Men appear to hail Gozer's arrival in Afterlife, the god itself maintains their humanoid avatar and never transforms or appears as the Destructor form that Ray chose in 1984. In the first film, the "pre-chosen form" bit could also just mean "Gozer offers a choice before destroying and making its full entrance" as we see in the climax, rather than meaning Gozer appears to its new choosers as whatever form it conquered with last.
This Skullector doll releasing during Pride is probably intentional, though there's no allusions to this being the case. As a licensed character with franchise governance, that makes more sense to me than Mattel making their own original queer characters into quiet covert celebrations. The prospect of Ghostbusters franchising heads chasing the rainbow dollar sounds unfathomable to me, so Gozer was probably never going to be promoted as a queer doll.
The product description uses the more conventional she/her pronouns to describe the doll. It can feel like a backslide after the Witch Weaver, who was something of a milestone for Mattel by putting they/them pronouns on the actual box of a nonbinary character, though I can't really say she/her for Gozer is incorrect, per se. Gozer never speaks up about what pronouns they'd like attached to their "body-horror new-wave femme" avatar. That's kind of what I like about them--they talk very little and get right to their mission, never declaring themselves or stating their motivation or identity. It's possible this avatar of Gozer is a she/her while others are not, or perhaps Gozer doesn't give a shit because they just want to destroy and no address toward them is worth caring about. I think, since "she/her" pronouns are officially used, even if by characters or writers who are too scared of any other pronouns, I will accept them as valid...alongside they/them. Heck, he/him and it/its are also used for Gozer at different points, so perhaps all pronouns are valid. I'll leave off the he/him for this doll, though, as that doesn't appear to be the desired perception of this particular form.
There are definite reasons to be offended by Gozer's portrayal, or to say the effect is, perhaps, not a slay. It's not difficult to argue that the first Ghostbusters is a broadly misogynist movie, and its treatment of femmes perhaps leaves it no surprise that the sexist tones of the backlash to the 2016 film were so prominent. As to Gozer, the alien evil ultimate god being "weirded" by a sexualized nonbinary style while still being most perceived as female and referred to with misognyistic language and combated and ultimately destroyed by four men with very Freudian weapons...creates an effect. The tone can come across as a very derogatory "tame and kill the queer bitch" sentiment, and oopsie you hatecrimed your villain on multiple levels! I think there is still a lingering queer appeal to Gozer, though. Queer-coded villains have been embraced and reclaimed for ages, androgynous new-wave style like Gozer's was legitimately popular in the youth counterculture of the time, and Gozer is a diva regardless of how icky they're supposed to have felt. I think Afterlife recognizes that Gozer is genuinely cool and detaches their queerness from disdainful portrayal much as it can hope to.
The way I see it, though, Gozer would be queer by our understanding, but also would be nobody's icon or ally or advocate, and fully disinterested with that status. They're far too old and powerful for modern social politics and such human affairs are beneath them, seeing as the only thing they desire is to destroy humans entirely. It's even made very clear in Afterlife that Gozer regards their own devoted cult servants and followers who empower them as less than nothing (another good touch added to the character). As such, one might admire Gozer as a gender icon from a distance. And then one would be vaporized by her at the first possible instant, because they do not like you because you are human. Even if you're genderqueer yourself. I simply can't imagine Gozer caring. That's fine. There are characters like the Witch Weaver to depict all-loving empowering nonconformity symbols. Having an all-hating one is okay too, and problematic queer people or entities don't deserve to be used as an argument against queerness. Gozer wanting to kill everybody is separate from rocking that look of theirs!
Mattel has crossed MH with Ghostbusters once before with a SDCC 2016 edition of Frankie Stein as a Ghostbuster.
This doll misread the room in two ways--she's a G2 edition when the whole fanbase would have preferred there to be zero collector dolls rendered in the G2 art style, and she's associated with the, fairly or not, culturally radioactive 2016 Ghostbusters reimagining movie. The film was widely and unjustly hated merely for flipping an all-male hero team to all-female, while also perhaps more fairly criticized for the quality and viewpoints of its writing and comedy (i.e., being too derivative in plot while totally disconnected from the subdued, sarcastic comic tone and appeal of the original). Wait, was Ghostbusters' 2016 controversy a warning for where the U.S. was heading that autumn?
It's a shame GB Frankie doesn't hit the mark for most collectors' appeal, representing both of her franchises' maligned reboots, but I wonder if Gozer will be making more collectors wish they had that Frankie anyway, just to display them together?
I was pretty sure I'd be getting the Gozer doll, but it was contingent on her execution. If it was something weird, and it didn't look good, I wouldn't make the call.
But then I saw their doll design...and, well, if someone asks if you want a doll of a god, you say yes!
In the first film, humanoid Gozer was played by Slavitza Jovan and dubbed over by Paddi Edwards as Jovan's vocal delivery was deemed insufficient. This design of Gozer is entirely what the doll is based on.
Gozer can't have more than five minutes of screentime in this form, making the Skullector doll perhaps a bit unusual. Gozer is a bigger narrative role than Miss Argentina and the magician's assistant, though, and I think humanoid Gozer appears onscreen for a bit longer than the Bride of Frankenstein does in the movie named for her, so Gozer doesn't win the title of "Skullector adaptation of the smallest appearance relative to the source work." I do feel like this is one of the (unjustifiably) less iconic horror characters to be made into a Skullector doll. Gozer is far more famous and recognizable as the titanic Marshmallow Man. I did actually privately guess a doll of Gozer, but I imagined a two-pack with another doll who would be based on Mr. Stay Puft. The latter (a solo, probably femme, Stay Puft doll in a bob and sailor dress) might have been the more predictable choice for the Skullector line. Maybe that's another release for another time! It could be awesome to reintroduce the Frightfully Tall scale for a giant Skullector Stay Puft doll, but it'll never happen. I'd fully welcome a cute sailor-girl Stay Puft if she was an oversize doll!
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| She has to be chubby, though! |
Realistically, if they do ever Skullectorize this character, they'll probably just do it at normal doll scale with some worthwhile marshmallowy body sculpting, and I'd still probably get her, but be personally upset they didn't make her giant. I hope I'm invoking a wrong prediction here by saying this. I've been collecting moments of prediction and hindsight on this blog to assemble into a separate post, and would be delighted to have this as one of my "proven wrong" takes.
To step away from a doll that doesn't exist, we need to address humanoid Gozer's second look.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a heavily indulgent nostalgia sequel that trades on repeated iconography, referential minutiae, and rehashed plot points to score points, moreso than bringing anything new in. I think an aspect of this is the film bringing back Gozer as the antagonist, and using the same basic look for their humanoid avatar, even establishing this as their most recognizable or most favored appearance with a temple carving in this likeness. I think it's arguable that this was not the intent in the first film, and that Gozer's avatar was just meant to be a one-off manifestation they felt like using that particular day in 1984. In Afterlife, the form was played by an uncredited, though much more famous, Olivia Wilde, and dubbed by Shohreh Aghdashloo.
I'm glad the Skullector design is based entirely on the costume and makeup worn by Jovan in the first film. None of Afterlife's design made improvements.
Skullector Gozer is, in fact, one of the most direct/least interpretive Skullector designs yet. Maybe the most faithful? I should try to rank Skullectors by the scale of accuracy/departure, but Gozer is far on the "stepped off the screen" end of the spectrum, which I always appreciate. Perhaps it's because they're already so strongly synergized with the ethos of Monster High that there was practically nothing that could make the look more fabulous or "fashion". Gozer is reflective of new-wave avant-garde and already has the pretty monster look and exaggerated glam makeup, so the job was basically already done for the Monster High team. Maybe they were so easy to fit into the doll brand that MH didn't bother with Stay Puft--yet?
Gozer is the second solo Skullector character who could have, in another reality, been paired with a Sigourney Weaver doll for a duo pack. Had Mattel made a Ripley doll to pair with the Xenomorph, they'd have the sculpt ready to also make a Zuul (Dana) doll to pair with Gozer. While Ripley is treated far better by her movie than Dana is in hers, it would be cool to see one actor receive different Skullector portraits from different projects. (Lupita Nyong'o has two Skullector portraits as a result of a two-pack based on a film where she played two central roles, but that's one work. I'm also not sure I'd count the upcoming Universal Mummy and girl Frankenstein as Boris Karloff getting second and third portraits since they are, by nature of the gender swap, not direct likenesses.)
After way too much prelude, here's the Gozer doll box arrived. The box is enclosed in a four-sided card sleeve with the top and bottom uncovered.
The back is a simple (hopefully human-made!) artwork of the cursed apartment building in rather lesbian colors, though I doubt that's intentional.
Gozer's only known queerness is gender-related. While their humanoid avatar can be read as a butch woman, they have no known interest in partnership, and certainly not with humans. They want to kill anybody not identified as a god.
Here's the sleeve removed. Gozer's backdrop depicts the extradimensional temple that is revealed, impossibly, through a doorway on the apartment rooftop. Their lieutenant Terror Dogs are packaged on either side to reference their placement in the tableau, emerging from and reverting to statues on pedestals.
The back copy uses she/her pronouns and typical Skullector-corny discussion of Gozer's fashion.
Gozer is probably the quickest unboxing I've ever experienced for a deluxe Monster High doll. I think their form-fitting costume with no drapery or hair to tie down resulted in a lot less that needed to be managed to secure them in the box, so they were out in a flash!
I might have appreciated a custom doll stand color to match the white and pearly tones of Gozer's bodysuit. The black stand is a stark contrast against the costume. Do I need to swap Lenore Loomington's stand a second time?
Hm. It's a good look, but Lenore has an extended stand pole to display her more floaty without touching the base, and the clip only slides so far down the pole. Even with the clip fully slid down, Gozer's feet can't touch the base, and they're not floaty enough as a character to justify this stand design. They're keeping their boring black one.
Now, Gozer's look gets a lot of visual queerness from their butch vertical haircut, and I'll admit, I had minimal faith in the Skullector design demonstrating comprehension of Gozer's appeal. I was scared they'd femme up the hair and utterly miss the point of a deliberately, twice-remarked-upon gender-defiant character. Skullector is very bad at reading and meeting the gendered importance of the character designs it adapts, primarily with its consistent refusal to depict men, and the nadir probably being the Lost Boys doll. I was immensely relieved to see here that the hair was not feminized or lengthened. Here, it's more of a slicked pompadour, Elvis-style, than a messy flat-top, but the style respects the aesthetic much better than I had any hope for.
The hair is all black and all gelled. It's longer at the front and sides, which are swept backward. It can't form a fully even flat-top, but loosening and trimming the hair in front ought to improve the silhouette. For a doll this close to the screen design, I don't really want to let the hairstyle take her off the path. I want the full look.
Gozer's faceup is basically one-to-one with the look worn by Slavitza Jovan. It's all there--the vertical contouring above the brows, the red eyes and eyeshadow, the silver markings on the face...the film perfected it so MH merely replicated!
The doll's red eyes aren't as icky as in the film, but replicate the all-red look with nuanced blending of red and purple shades, while the iris and pupils have muted dark colors rather than stark black for more of that monotone, almost gel-encased look. Afterlife either forgot or refused to make Gozer visceral and vile, replacing the gooey red eyes with solid black and making the body look more clean and symmetrical. I like that they're gross in the first film!
The contouring is perhaps starker than in the film, but this is Monster High! The head mold is unique to Gozer, and the silver accents on its face are actually dimensional as well as painted.
Gozer's skintone is a shimmery pale yellowish tone which might be plausible as a human skintone, but is a bit eerie in effect. Jovan doesn't have an obviously nonhuman skintone effect in her Gozer makeup, so I think the doll lands the right balance. I think the face is really beautiful.
In neither version of the character's design does Gozer's textured body look like much more than a costume suit, but I think it's meant to blur a costume and flesh together. In Afterlife, Gozer's body is more ridged and spiky and constantly flashes with VFX orange electrical energy, but in the original, their body texture is more gross, with stretched irregular skinlike fibers and pearlescent pustules all over. This is what the Skullector doll invokes. I like that choice. The original look felt more like a god of evil embracing irregularity and the foul, while the reboot redesign is too sleek and conventional. The constant VFX weren't necessary, either.
Gozer has three removable pustule pieces which wrap around their bodysuit. There are three which are basically the shape of clip-on rings--one on each upper arm, and one on their right thigh, while there's a larger wrap on the torso which goes behind their neck and waist. The thigh wrap is a slight spiral. The bubble pieces are shimmery pearl in color, and the torso wrap and leg wrap have some web accents.
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| The two arm wraps. |
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| The leg wrap. |
The bodysuit is silver fabric with a white webby net texture over it, and the interior of the silver fabric feels like satin inside the bodysuit. The silver layer has a dipped neckline that the netting doesn't follow, covering more of the collar than the silver section does. The suit has some asymmetrical frills of extra fabric placed around it, and the cuffs are made to look tattered.
The bodysuit fit is tight and slightly restrictive to the shoulder articulation, but it's not a major impediment.
Gozer's hands have ridiculously long nails which are the same pearly color as their pustule bubbles.
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| I mean, come on. You're telling me this doll isn't dressed for Pride? This avatar being Gozer's drag persona might be a valid reading! |
Gozer's bodysuit velcros down the back. The material resists the doll stand clip a bit, either through texture or thickness, but it gets in there.
Gozer's shoes continue the pustule wraps with trails that are part of the shoe mold. They're platform heels with a webby texture and some brick texture on the platform.
Gozer does have object heels, but they are better than some recent Skullector examples. Mr. Stay Puft blends well in shaping and color with the pearly boils texturing the doll, so he's an inobtrusive heel design. The apartment architecture on the other heel? Not so much, but at least it's not painted into a separate color that totally clashes.
Gozer's lieutenants are a pair of demons named Zuul (the Gatekeeper) and Vinz Clortho (the Keymaster). Their default form is a pair of bestial creatures called "Terror Dogs", though their ritual M.O. to summon their master is for Zuul to possess a man and Zuul a woman, whereupon they mate in those bodies and fulfill the innuendo of their titles. While Dana possessed by Zuul could be a controversial, if iconic doll of her own, the Terror Dogs are also iconic. I feared these would be referenced as ugly object heels...but the team made them into typical doll pets! They're Terror Puppies here! This is the best feasible approach to feature the lieutenants in this doll's iconography.
The two Terror Dogs are visually distinct in the film, just subtly, thanks to the design of their horns, and that allows us to identify the Monster High versions by name. Per the film, Zuul has the horns which curve once and point down, and Vinz Clortho has the horns which curve twice and point up.
The dogs are not nearly the proper size, but they are larger than G1 Monster High pets. I like that they have different body language, and it seems to fit them. Zuul seems to be the more intelligent predator, while Vinz is more of the stupid dog of the two, and Zuul's prowling stride and Vinz's crouched almost-sit fits that dichotomy.
I saw the seams around their heads, but I didn't expect them to be rotation joints. Turns out, they are! Zuul and Vinz's heads swivel! This lets you increase the personality by cocking Vinz's head in a clueless manner, while it can intensify the look of focus in Zuul.
Even one point of articulation for a Monster High pet feels like a great gift. These dogs are awesome. They feel substantial despite being stylistically downsized, and I'm really happy with the way they were depicted for this doll.
It's pretty popular for villains to have lightning to cast from their hands. Palpatine, Winifred Sanderson, and Gozer are three I can name off the top of my head, though Winifred didn't get any magic lightning in her Skullector doll while Gozer does. I bet Winnie wishes she did. (There are many ways the Hocus Pocus set could have been better!) Gozer's lightning pieces are purple to match the film and are basically clip-on wrist bracers.
They're designed to clip around the sleeves since they can't fit under them, and it's a little finicky. They also can't follow the wrists when they hinge, so the hands are best kept parallel to the lightning for display purposes. I might have preferred some finger brackets to have the lightning attached to the hand pieces and able to pose along with the hand posing, but they might have been too heavy for the wrist hinges that way. The accessory design is still effective enough.
I wouldn't mind a take two on the Sandersons, maybe as solo dolls, with Winnie getting this lightning mold on her second edition. The best dolls of the Sandersons are Disney Store exclusives with animated-style faces, but those dolls, solo editions, are very expensive today.
I had hoped Gozer would be on the big-sister body for a more imposing and mature look, but they're on the standard mid-teen body. Gozer's only special sculpts are the head and hands.
They definitely make it work and have presence all done up, though.
I don't believe there are any Skullettes on this doll.
Gozer's neck articulation was very poor, so I took them to hack up the joint socket a bit and increase the mobility. I also loosened and trimmed the hairstyle a bit.
Here's Gozer with the nonbinary flag. They probably couldn't care less about queer politics, but they look pretty good with the flag, considering the purple, black, and white aspects of the doll--even the skintone could align with the yellow stripe. They match the flag better than G3 Frankie and the Witch Weaver do.
In preparation for the photoshoot, I got some pearls and a shiny wrinkled sheet of pearly paper to build a textured backdrop for portraits--like this, but with better lighting:
Then I had a better idea to elevate the concept. I put a glass pane above the paper, doll, and pearls so I could add slime and more pearls on top for a layered composition that suggested Gozer being encased in a gooey substance that matched their body texture. Such a thing is never seen in the film, but I thought it suited their body-horror glam look.
The results speak for themselves.
I then tried purple, then purple and yellow for nonbinary colors.
And a couple of Ghostbusters-green shots.
I think this setup really captured the artistic high-fashion glamor and visceral nasty horror of Gozer's look.
I had to have one photo of them in the fridge, as Dana sees visions of Gozer's temple when she opens her fridge door.
Then I set them up with my bed lounge and the shredded-style white fabric I got last October, staging Gozer cuddling with their puppies!
Who knew Gozer and her dogs could be cute?
Here's the chair in this setup.
And a pose with the lightning.
Here's the doll in blacklight and some other stark lighting with their lightning.
I got out my Ghostbusters LEGO minifigures too. I never got the Firehouse HQ set (a major regret), so I don't have Dana, Louis, Janine, the Library Ghost, or the Zombie Taxi Driver.
Then I tried some demonic contortions with the doll.
And one more photo in the "white room" with the dogs.
Since I do not have a Temple of Gozer or New York City at my disposal, I didn't even try to simulate Gozer in their movie environment. I could possibly climb onto my garage roof at night...though I fear the prospect of having the police called on me in my own home when someone sees a guy hauling a ladder to the garage roof at night, so I didn't risk it. I just settled for a photo against the box art.
Here's all of my Ghostbusters paraphernalia together.
Then I assembled my genderqueer Monster High dolls, but there was a bit of an issue when Gozer realized Frankie and the Weaver weren't gods.
Things got sorted when Gozer realized the others were monsters and might be able to help wreak havoc on the human world. Frankie and the Weaver didn't agree, but figured it was best to play along so they could get a group photo. Gozer halfheartedly but willingly held the NB flag.
I don't know if I've made this clear enough...but Skullector Gozer looks really damn good. This is a stunning doll design, and I love them way more than I expected to. The face is beautifully rendered and the costume looks fantastic. The new-wave gender glam of the film costume is fully translated into a very faithful doll design that makes me appreciate Gozer the film design more than I ever had before. This isn't a movie I hold central to my heart, nor a character I adored before, but I really love the doll. Visually, it's a 9.5, and can become a ten if you take the very simple steps to match the hair to the film look. The lightning accessories also work fine and the Terror Dogs are delightful, and more substantial and display-friendly than I had anticipated. Getting them as pets with rotating heads is a treat. Gozer isn't perfect. I might have designed lightning to attach to the fingers instead, and the neck joints continue to disappoint. A boring black stand that contrasts the costume so much is also underwhelming. But these are nitpicks. I'm very impressed with this doll otherwise.
I know they'd kill me. But they absolutely slay. Happy Monster High Pride.
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