Ghoul's Night Out
Ghoul's Night out is this year's "formal" "party" line. From what I understand of the concept, several of the girls get dressed up to attend a Catty Noir concert.
Fine and dandy, it's a group of girls in their concert outfits.
So the line has 3 characters in it as single dolls. Lagoona, Spectra and Rochelle. An odd combination given the three of them never seem to interact in any other media but evidently they share a love for bland pop music (What? If you've seen 13 wishes you'll remember or rather, won't remember, that utterly forgettable cover of Steppenwolf's magic carpet ride Catty performed. Yawwn.)
But of course, shortly following the release of these three, came the 4 pack. An Asda exclusive here in the UK (Walmart in the US) and incredibly expensive.
Asda initially listed the set on their website at £50, then within a fortnight, eager no doubt to rake in more profit, upped the price to £60. It's a trend that's happening a lot in this country with Monster High, stores upping the prices only a week or two after the launch in an attempt to extort more money from customers. *sigh* It's quite offputting.
Anyway, suffice to say, at £60 most people went "uh. no thanks" and the sets sat... and sat... and sat. Till Asda's random massive sale clearance when the set dropped to an impressive £30. They did this with the last multipack they had as well, and obviously, sold out within about a day.
So, unable to resist a bargain I ordered the 4 pack at the same time I ordered the die-ner. And waited... and waited... and waited for the post to be delivered.
Several days later a parcel arrived, hurled lackadaisically over my fence and waiting in the rain. Rescuing it, I was a little disappointed to find it was just the die-ner, evidently Asda were intending to dispatch both items individually.
And so I continued to wait, ever fearful they'd cancel my order. But finally the set arrived, this time tucked merrily behind a potted plant on our front porch. (Wth My Hermes couriers? Wth?)
The set contains 4 dolls obviously, 3 exclusive to the pack, and inexplicably an additional Rochelle. Why? Goodness knows.
Ghoulia, Clawdeen and Venus join the others at the concert. Though to be honest, I don't think i've EVER seen anyone wear such party frocks to a music gig. A party, yeah, but not a gig.
now the three single dolls each come with a little booklet photo album thing, the four pack is missing those as well as stands. To be expected, multipacks always end up missing a lot of stuff but i'm still fixating on why the heck Rochelle got a single release as well. Why not just make this a three pack like Dot Dead Gorgeous was? All this pack does is mean anyone who wanted one of the other characters from this set wouldn't buy single issue Rochelle.... meaning she'll shelf sit. I... I don't get the logic or the reasoning here.
Anyway, let's look at the dolls.
Ghoulia is rocking a bit of geek chiq here. A sparkly blue dress with attached apron... pleplum.. thing. The glasses motif is a new pattern for her, kinda a shame to me as a brain pattern would have been more familiar but oh well, trying something new incorporating her glasses. Fine.
She comes with an icoffin and a purse. I have to admit, I kinda miss the older style slide phones, but I get why they changed them. not only cheaper, but slide phones are no longer widely used. still, they were cool.
Next is Venus, in a striking but rather girly pink number. Also has a purse and Icoffin.
Then Clawdeen, who's got her now pretty typical purple streaked hair and a little shift dress with a mesh top over it. Again, purse and Icoffin.
And Rochelle, who seems to be identical to her single issue. Bag, Icoffin, cute dress. All she's lost is her stand and booklet I believe. So in other words... if you already own the single issue, this doll is POINTLESS.
Anyway, let's look at each doll in detail before I bore everyone with my rage lol.
Venus McFlytrap
The first one I deboxed was Venus, who was the main reason I wanted this set. I mean look at her! She's awesome! Ok... so i'm a bit biased here hah.
Anyway, she's got a real 80s pop princess thing going on here. Pink hair, pink dress, sparkly black bits.. leg warmers? Love it.
The dress is made of two different pink fabrics. A pink satin skirt with ruffles that look a bit... flower petalish. And a bodice with thorn motif. Ooo I do like this thorn motif.
The dress has one longer sleeve and one short sleeve and a ruffle at the waist in shimmery, black stretchy mesh.
Her purse is a big flower, it's CUTE. Maybe not very eco punk, but it's adorable so who cares?
Her shoes have random spots and look like they have the measles. Not sure what the dots are all about. The heel is a twisted vine, makes me think of beanstalks.
Her hair is pulled back into two ponytails which shows off her ears nicely. The right ear has three flower shaped earrings which look a little too large and a bit awkward.
While the left side has a single vine shaped earring.
Alongside original Venus you can see how much closer spaced and less staring into space this Venus' eyes are. While original Venus kinda looks like she's high on spores, Ghoul's Night Out is actually focused. She also looked younger with her eyes closer spaced like this, I think she's adorable.
Makeup wise,GNO has paler peachy lippy and vivid pink eyeshadow, a more saturated tone than original Venus but done in a similar style.
I adore her. She feels like a complete doll which is unusual for these multipacks. Her faceup is gorgeous and I think she's solidified herself as my favourite Venus to date.
I give Venus a solid 9 pox ridden shoes out of 10.
Love love love her.
Clawdeen Wolf
I love Clawdeen, which is odd because her original first wave doll was a doll I really couldn't like. She was bland, her outfit was clashing and she just felt very uninspired to me.
However, she's a character who's dolls change it up more than any other, with crazy colours in her hair and a plethora of styles to chose from. She's versatile and changeable and I like that about her.
Sadly, Clawdeen's got stuck in a purple rut. More often than not she has this purple hair and I do love purple, but i'd love to see some more Clawdeen's with red like Scarily ever after or maybe blue or something.
Anyway, the purple here is pretty. She reminds me very much Scaris Clawdeen though. But I don't own Scaris Clawdeen so it's fine.
Clawdeen's hair is a golden brown colour with very broad purple streaks through one side. It's actually very nice hair, soft, not frizzy. I like it.
She has her usual 2 earrings in each ear. In this case a simple gold and black hoop. My Clawdeen's often have damage where their earrings are inserted, this girl is no different.
The outfit is actually not just a dress and overshirt as I expected. The sleeves are individual pieces as well. Odd.
The overshirt is a purple and black mesh with a tiger stripe pattern while the dress is black stretchy and has a geometric zipper pattern. At first I couldn't figure out what those lines were, but yeah, they're zippers. I'm not sure why Clawdeen has a zipper fetish but hey, takes all sorts I suppose.
The dress itself is pretty simple but I feel like the whole outfit is generic enough to be a good mix and match set. Any of the werecats or werewolves can pull off animal print and the zipper dress well, those gold geometric patterns bring to mind Cleo.
I'm sure most readers have noticed this glaring yellow monstrosity in previous photos. So let's address that big neon elephant in the room shall we?
The purse.
It's fluro yellow and pawprint shaped. Clawdeen? Did you steal one of Howleen's bags? Because this thing really does look more like something Howleen would have than her fashionista sister.
The colour doesn't go with any of the rest of the outfit, it stands out glaringly and it looks childish alongside that very chic outfit. It's gotta go.
The shoes are a recast of Scarily Ever After's basket platforms. They're sweet shoes and they go fine with the rest of the outfit. nothing special though.
That neon yellow appears in only ONE other bit of the outfit. See that tiny bracelet? yeah the one hidden by her sleeve when she has her arm down?
This girl is very beautiful, her eyeshadow is two toned purple while her lips are a muted fushia tone. She wears a gold spiked headband and a black spiked wrist cuff.
Overall I do like her. I don't think she's amazing, unlike Venus, but she's a pretty enough doll.
Clawdeen gets 7 stolen kiddy bags out of 10.
Her outfit is versatile and her face and hair are attractive. She's obviously a basic doll, but she still oozes style. That ugly bag aside.
Ghoulia Yelps
Ghoulia is really embracing her nerd here. It's a cute geeky outfit, but the fabric choices kinda bug me.
The shiny blue just isn't to my taste and I can't help but wish the apron bit was removable or at least had a more obviously zombie theme to it.
But this Ghoulia makes up for it with some fabulously gorey accessories.
The shoes are taken straight from Dot Dead Gorgeous and were my favourite bit of that doll as well. They're great, all bones on top and then squishy brain platforms.
I kinda wish they'd done something a bit different here though, I don't mind recasts when they change the colours and such but with this style there's really no other colours the shoes COULD be. But it's more the fact that the last multipack exclusive to Asda WAS that DDG 3 pack. So it's duplicated shoes in very rapid succession. A shame, they're really cool shoes but I don't really need or want two pairs.
The glasses are pretty standard, and she has a red headband as well (useful for mix and match right there) but those earrings! they're little brains! They are so cute and so gross at the same time, love it!
Like the earrings, the handbag is a brain. I want one in human size! It's a fantastic item, it has stitching markings to make it look all sewn so it's simultaneously fabric AND brain. That's so cool. Very very awesome bag.
Ghoulia also gets a few bracelets, which is a nice touch. It helps to pull her outfit together.
I do like that this set feels like four complete dolls unlike DDG which felt like one almost complete doll and two really unfinished ones.
Ghoulia's eye makeup immediately made me think of Scaris Ghoulia who also sports bright red lippy and blue eye shadow. They aren't the same though. GNO Ghoulia has much brighter blue and more orange-red lipstick. Also, GNO's hair is frizzy as hell. See how nice and shiny and not a ball of fluff my totally just pulled off the shelf and shoved into a photo Scaris girl is? GNO's hair is just... fluffy. It's really prone to frizz and her bangs are laden with gel so it sticks out odd. She needs a stylist STAT.
Stripped of her accessories, this Ghoulia looks to me very mature, but i'm not sure I really LIKE her as such. Her dress just doesn't scream "Ghoulia" to me, or "nerdy zombie". It's fairly generic in the patterns which is a good thing if you like mixing and matching, but a shame considering I adore Ghoulia and her brains and cherry motifs.
That said, it's nice to see her sporting something nerdy in style rather than the random pinup stuff she's been getting more of lately. This outfit feels a bit more in keeping with that aspect of her character, but there's something off about the execution that I simply cannot put my finger on.
Overall, Ghoulia gets 6 epic brain purses out of 10.
There are prettier Ghoulias sadly. Her accessories are fantastic, but the doll itself just doesn't grab me. Sadly, now stripped of her brain items, this girl is straight into the "to sell" pile.
Rochelle Goyle
Aaaand Rochelle was there too... and her doppleganger.
Ok so ignoring the fact she's a duplicate in the series, Rochelle is kinda cute. Her outfit is a frilly pink number though the pvc ruffs kinda.. throw me a bit and keep me really liking this dress. I don't like plasticy bits on dresses, either for myself or for dolls. I feel they make the outfit look cheap and costumey. It's like she cut up a raincoat to make her dress.
Those odd shiny sleeves don't help either. They're totally random and go with nothing else in the outfit.
It's one of those outfits that looks cute from a distance but the closer I look, the more aspects annoy me.
The scarf is a lovely touch though, very Scarisian.
Anyway, her purse is a sweet little handbag with filigree detailing. It's a nice piece.
I do love these shoes as well.
Rochelle has her hair swept back and held in place with two fleur de lys clips. Her makeup is a soft opalescent pink and quite attractive.
However she really doesn't look that different from her other releases to me and I can't help but prefer her with bangs.
What gets me about this Rochelle is that she's one of the "complete" dolls sold individually but aside from a few reused sculpts in the other three, she doesn't' really feel that different or any more finished than they do.
Again I go back to Dot Dead Gorgeous where I felt like the Ghoulia and Draculaura were incomplete, this time none of the dolls feel unfinished at all. I don't feel like "oh a shame, she should have a belt, or a necklace", all their outfits WORK out of the box which is great to see.
Oh there's things i'd change, like that bag Clawdeen has and maybe a different shoe sculpt for Ghoulia, but this pack doesn't feel as hastily thrown together as the previous 3 pack did and for that i'm grateful.
Rochelle in general, doesn't wow me. But she didn't wow me in her single box either. I prefer my original release but this one does have some nice little accessories which i'm totally stealing.
Overall I give Rochelle 7 hacked up raincoats out of 10.
She's a cute doll, but there's bits of her outfit that really bother me.
In conclusion
Overall I do like this 4 pack, though I still can't figure out why it's a 4 pack and not another 3 pack with the three new dolls. The addition of Rochelle really does feel like they had extra Rochelles they wanted rid of.
It also bumps the retail of this set up to a point where it's way out of most people's budgets, and I can't see that really being a wise move.
Do I think the set was worth the original £60 price tag? I'm not sure. If you consider, it puts the price of each doll at £15, which is pretty much their retail price (they're £16:99 in most stores but you can get them for less) and these ones don't come with a stand or the booklet of the single dolls which only cost £1:99 more each.
It seems a little steep for reused moulds and no stands etc.
The £50 price tag seems far more reasonable, putting each doll at £12:50 each, around the same price as the budget lines like Music Festival and Roller Maze etc who likewise come without stands or booklets.
The set should have remained at £50, and I like to think Asda are kicking themselves for their greed now that the sets have shelf sat at £60 for so long they've been forced to clearance them for half that. They WERE selling at £50, as soon as the price went up, surprise surprise, they stopped selling.
Depressingly, this trend is becoming very common over here. Tesco recently upped the price of their exclusive Catty Noir from £20 to £22. Toys R Us upped the price of their exclusive 2 packs from £29:99 to £34:99 and are also trying to flog GNO single dolls for £24:99.
Stores have caught on to how popular this franchise is, and they're determined to gouge every penny they can out of us as a result. I find this rather off putting and it makes me really reluctant to purchase items from stores who do this. I feel like they're taking advantage of the fact that you can't get the exclusives anywhere but there, and have decided to price things as high as they can out of nothing but greed.
This set should never have retailed at £60, there's no way. Someone was looking at their profit margins and decided to try their luck at increasing them. I'm glad it backfired, serves them right.
£30 for this was an absolute bargain. Even if I only keep one or two of the dolls, i've paid £7:50 for each of them, which doesn't buy you a lot these days.
I was tempted to shell out £50 just to get Venus to be honest, she's brilliant.
