by: -RoG-

Crap. It's that time again isn't it. Time for me to torture my teeth and slay my stomach with more sugary snacks in one sitting than any rational human being ever should. Well, lucky for you, I've been collecting candies over the past 2 months of the 2009 Halloween season and am ready to report for taste testing duty once again.

Before we get started, I must remind you again that the Wonka candy company still hasn't brought back their Count Wonkula Bloodberry Donutz! Yes, the same candy donuts which received my vote for the best Halloween candy two years in a row! We need to band together and let them know that we want our chocolate donutz candies back and we want them blooooooody! When you have a chance, please take a minute and email them at techhelp@wonka.com and tell them you want those candies back on store shelves pronto!

Also, if you haven't ready my past Halloween candy coverage from 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, make sure you do because many of the candies from those years are still in production. Alright, let's get started!

Grave Grabbers

The Flix candy company always delivers the goods each year with appealing looking Halloween treats, and these new Grave Grabbers gummy treats are no exception. Highly detailed severed hands that are tasty enough to eat, but also make fine decorations. You can get a cherry skeleton hand, an apple zombie hand, or a blue raspberry rotted corpse hand. As an added bonus, I also appreciate the fact that Grave Grabbers allow you to act even more immature on Halloween.

out of 5 floating eyeballs

Gourmet Puffy Candy Corn

Those of you who don't appreciate regular candy corn (something I'll never understand, because I can't get enough of the stuff) may like these. They're very soft candy corn flavored pieces, somewhere between the consistency of a marshmallow and a gummy bear. It starts out tasting just like regular candy corn, but the center is far sweeter than what you'd expect from such a treat. They're alright, but I prefer the real thing. If you don't, however, these may do the trick for you.

Also, I'm pretty sure you can call anything "Gourmet" as long as you put it in a sleek looking package with ornate designs that grandma would approve of. Hell, if I puked into a Swarovski crystal bowl, that puke would then be known as "Gourmet Puke". Funny how that works.

out of 5 Phantasm Sentinel Spheres

Ring Pop "Screaming Berry" 2-Pack

Ring Pops will always hold a welcome place on my fingers and in my stomach, so it's nice to see that they're joining in with the Halloween celebrations this year. The new "Screaming Berry" flavor 2-pack features a nice design with hands gripping the pops in front of an open graveyard. What's interesting is how the pops are larger than the hands on the package. The hands are barely able to grip them, they're that huge! I hope the Bazooka company decides to make head-sized ring pops like that sometime. Until then, we'll have to make due with these standard sized pops, and that's fine because they're still delicious and these "Screaming Berry" ones are absolutely Halloweeny with the orange and black swirl pattern. It's good they give you two in each pack, because I have a feeling you'll want to eat one and wear the other until Halloween is over.

out of 5 Uncle Festers

Bug Factor Arackneggz

Now here's a newcomer that screams of sheer awesomeness. Have you ever wanted to eat the swollen bloody butt of an arachnid? Well now you can, thanks to these new Bug Factor Arackneggz by Cap Candy. It's a plastic black spider toy with a sack filled with slimy red candy. All you do is cut open the sack and suck away. Suck a spider's sack! Who wouldn't want to do that!? If you can track it down, I highly recommend picking it up, if for no other reason than the sheer novelty of sucking on a spider's sack.

out of 5 pumpkin candles

Monster Poppers

If you love Pop Rocks as much as I do, then Monster Poppers will be right up your alley, because that's exactly what they are. All they are is Pop Rocks with better packaging. Speaking of which, as you already know I'm a huge fan of Madballs, and I gotta say, these things remind me of 'em. Don't you think they should try making these Monster Poppers characters into a series just like Madballs? Take a closer look! I would buy those in a heartbeat if they made 'em into toys!

out of 5 Pennywise clowns

Hallow Rings

If they tasted better, these new Hallow Rings would definitely be giving Ring Pops a run for their money. The pumpkin, witch, bat and skull rings all look fantastic and are nicely detailed. The only drawback is the extremely bland flavor of each one. Still, they make for some nice decorative rings, so at least they have that going for 'em... but if you'd rather have something with bursting flavor, stick with the Ring Pops.

out of 5 full moon

Wonka Sweet Tarts Squeez Cherry Gooey Blood

How have I missed out on this one for so long? This stuff is delicious! I've always liked Sweet Tarts, and these tubes of Squeez Cherry Gooey Blood taste just like them. Imagine somebody dumping a bag of these famous old Wonka candies into a blender and made a smoothie out of 'em... that's pretty much what you have here. The flavor is really strong and sweeter than ever, but somehow, it works. It works really well and if I didn't have a ton of other candies to try out at the moment, I'd probably finish the tube off in one sitting. If you can find the stuff, I highly recommend trying some. And hey, even if you don't like it, you can use it as some ridiculously bright looking fake blood come Halloween.

out of 5 pumpkin carving tools

Boooo Bands

Now here's a new twist on gummy candies. Boooo Bands are like Lance Armstrong's"LiveStrong" wrist bands that were all the rage for a while, the only difference being you can actually eat these ones and they have Halloween-themed messages on them. Messages like "Boo!", "Spooky" and "Trick". Guess they couldn't fit "or-Treat" on that last one. They're a bit sticky to wear on your wrist for too long, and honestly, I think if you decide to wear them on your wrist for a fairly long time, you probably wouldn't want to eat them afterwards. So it comes down to a decision... fashion or flavor? Fortunately, they come in bags of 20 so you can indulge in both. LiveStrong this Halloween!

out of 5 brains in jars of formaldehyde

Oh but there's more!
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