Let's get into this season’s best spooky junk food! If you don't already know the drill, we go down the lineup of found goodies and give an honest rating from 1 to 10. This year has been a bit different; nothing insanely new, a lot of re-used elements being disguised as spooky things, and not a lot in the category of "candy suitable for handing out".... unless you hand out bags of cooked macaroni and cheese regularly (please don’t).

GHOULISH GREEN SNICKERS AND TWIX

This was, I believe, the first "new" one I found for the year - hiding behind other Halloween candy at a Martins store. And boy.... what a strong new addition to the spooky season lineup!

I know, I know... it's a plain ass Snickers and Twix and also random packs of Ghoul Mix M&M’s.... but the bars are GREEEEEEEN! And not just a little green. You know the movie Fifth Element? When Ruby Rod asked what color green his show was on a scale of, presumably, good green to bad green? Yeah, these are THE BEST green. Ruby Rod would be proud to have a show as green as ghoulish Snickers and Twix.

I cant go lower than an 8 on these guys. Perhaps even go a bit higher to an 8.5 or even 9. These things, for some reason, really impressed me for how simple they are. This is all it takes to stand out and I think Ghoulish Green Snickers and Twix will be remembered for years to come (if they aren't brought back the next few seasons, that is)!

MOUNTAIN DEW VOODEW 4

Every year since 2019, we’ve been given a new Voodew flavor. This is the first year that they’ve finally made the jump to offering a Zero (sugar free) option! Now I'm just waiting for the extra EXTRA leap to offering caffeine free... (and also offering them to me personally before everyone else like the other cool cats and kittens with big junk food accounts (Hit them DMs, boo 💋)).

I'm sure by now most of you have seen my poorly shot reel on Instagram but if you haven't, I go on to say how I'm almost 100% positive it's Sour Patch Kids or "tart plot children" to avoid copyright laws like the last 3.

The verdict? Well, it's delicious! I love Sour Pa.....er Tart Gummy Kiddos and this could easily be a regular soda that I'd be happy to purchase once in a while. 9 out of 10!

CHEETOS MAC ’N CHEESE BOX OF BONES

Since 2014, Cheetos have been on their yearly ‘Bag of Bones’ kick, offering 3 different flavors and even one of those huge tin buckets your grandma use to throw stale party mix in. I'm not complaining! Who doesn't love making mutant skeleton snakes and two headed side show freaks out of white cheddar, flaming hot and sweet cinnamon puffs? Well, they finally went in a completely different direction and offered us a boxed mac and cheese version of their beloved boney shapes!

Being honest, again… it's just Mac and Cheese. BUT, they're skeleton shaped and nuclear orange colored! That's the beauty of Halloween; ordinary things become so much more with just a simple change of color, shape or even a small box art change. Plus, it paired fairly well with a medium rare ribeye. I know, I'm boujie af. Now even the guys at work know I'm boujie after taking the other steak and leftover box of bones to work the following day. Gotta let em know!

I'm going with an 8 out of 10; it's spooky mac and cheese, what's not to love?

MAD SCIENTIST MIX M&M’S

By now, everyone knows about M&Ms Ghouls Mix. These come in both peanut and regular form, but still no peanut butter in sight! I've been dreaming of a day when I can get all three varieties in spooky colors, and it seems almost as if Mars finally answered all my candy coated prayers! This year they threw the Ghouls mix color scheme on on all three, put them in the same bag and slapped an adorable Orange Boi mad scientist on the front.

The Mad Scientist batch M&Ms are the end-all-be-all Halloween M&M and I can't be told otherwise. The flavors are all there, the colors are all there.... there is a fuckin’ Mad Scientist on the cover of this black bag! "MAD SCIENTIST" is even written in a spooky green & purple outlined Munsters font! What more could we honestly ask for?

It's a 10 for me, dawg. Legit always munching on M's all season, now without having to mix batches myself. Epic.

LITTLE DEBBIE PUMPKIN DELIGHTS ICE CREAM

I hesitated to review this one here. I mean, Van Leeuwen made a pumpkin ice cream too... why not talk about that? Because Debbie has been up to her antics for quite some time, and her Pumpkin Delight is an iconic Halloween staple that deserves to be talked about!

Well, it tastes like anyone would suspect; Pumpkin. It has this probably cinnamony, pumpkiny swirl. It's delicious for sure, but how does it hold up to the lunch box friendly counter part? It's close, but I'd almost always rather have the real deal. No, wait, both... yeah, both at the exact time.

I feel like most of these Debbie Ice creams are missed opportunities in the sense that they could probably just throw the actual cakes in the mix, instead of trying to mimic them in Ice cream form. Don’t get me wrong, they're good, just not “hit the nail on the head” good.

I'll go easy on it and throw it a 7 out of 10... mainly because I can't hate Ice cream that tastes at least decent.

HOCUS POCUS 2 BERRY BREW CEREAL

Last year, we got some pretty awesome looking Hocus Pocus cookies. This year, we got a sequel and a cereal based on said sequel. Yes, it's literally called "Hocus Pocus 2 Berry Brew Cereal." The only thing that could have made this box better is if they used Roman numerals like they did with TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze.

This is a Berry flavored cereal which usually leads me to believe it'll taste similar to Crunch Berries. I was delightfully surprised to find at first smell how much they reminded me of blueberry Pop-Tarts! I'm telling you, almost spot on. The colors are on point for a Halloween cereal, and I love that they embellished the cereal pieces with these little green pimples; truly a masterpiece!

Gonna go with a 9 out of 10. It's an awesome cereal and I'd love to see the flavor, at the very least, come back permanently.

RICE KRISPIES SHOCKING ORANGE CEREAL

We have a shocking amount of cereals for Halloween this year. Among them a familiar face, albeit with an intense orange makeover; Rice Krispies new Shocking Orange Cereal!

This cereal, of course, has no special flavor but does sport a serious amount of food dye. I didn't think any cereal brand could get away with that anymore, but here we are!

So, it's just orange Rice Krispies? Well, yeah but look at the box! I'll be the first to admit, sometimes the cereal has nothing to do with why I bought the cereal. I will also admit that I will never get sick of seeing a cereal mascot in costume on a Halloween themed box. Gonna go 7 out of 10. While the box is amazing, I'm almost surprised they didn't try to flavor it something else. Nonetheless, a fine addition to the 2022 Halloween lineup.

HALLOWEEN FRUITY PEBBLES

Yet another cereal that falls into the category of "nothing new but, wow, look at that box!"

I'll be honest, the box is about 90% the reason I buy most of this shit, if not the entire reason. And this thing is one for the books! I swear, it had me trekking through old boxes I own, as well as boxes on eBay to see if this particular artwork hadn't already been done yet. Turns out it hadn’t, imagine that? A brand new box that somehow looks like it was out when I was still trick-or-treating.

The cereal still has the same lemony fruity flavor, albeit in a new color scheme which is appropriate and appreciated. The box alone has to get an 8 out of 10.

PILLSBURY MONSTER CEREAL COOKIES

As far back as I can remember, the Monster Cereals have always been pushed around this time of year. But, it does seem like they've been getting an extra push these days when the limits of junk food are seemingly endless. All that brings me to…Monster Cereal Cookies!

In a nutshell? Same shit, different IP. Pillsbury has been throwing everything on it's "ready to bake or just eat raw" sugar cookie dough; the Count and Frankenberry are their latest victims. The one big thing that makes these a bit different from the rest is that they're flavored like their cereal counterparts.

I tried them both raw and baked. Raw was kinda weird. The Frankenberry had a slight flavor resemblance to bubblegum. Count Chocula tasted like fake chocolate and.... also kinda like bubblegum? Weird. Once baked, the flavors were a bit more familiar and both tasted spot on.

I'm not gonna lie, these aren't for me. I hate to give them a shit score, mainly because I love the idea, but I have be honest with myself. Gonna have to go with a 5 out of 10. Not bad, but not great. As the kids say, kinda mid.

YOPLAIT CEREAL MONSTER YOGURT

Yoplait yeeted that silly fucking rabbit right out the way and brought the haunted tag team, Boo Berry and Frankenberry, in to play! If you ask me, its about time. We love the rabbit, but the monsters on yogurt is kind of a big deal to us ‘packed-lunch’ 90s kids.

Unlike the monster cookies, these aren't cereal-accurate, flavor wise. We have both Strawberry Scream and Boo! Blueberry. If I'm being honest, they both kinda taste like cherry cough syrup. Ok… it's not that bad, but it's close!

Regardless of flavor, I still love the idea and I almost feel like they could bring the other 3 in at some point. Gonna go with a 6 out of 10 on these joints.

WILEY WALLABY CANDY CORN DROPS

This was an entirely new animal all of its own. Until today, I don't think I've ever had a hard shelled licorice candy, let alone one that was flavored after candy corn.

This stuff is honestly pretty wild. I feel like the differences in texture don't work the best, especially since its a chewier licorice in the middle. It's.... different. Not necessarily bad but a flavor that you need to acquire a taste for. The flavor, however, accurate as fuck! These taste more like candy corn than candy corn does, if that makes sense? The texture almost has me believing I'm eating actual candy corn!

While it's not my fav, I will say that it was a great effort at something we haven't seen before. Gonna go with a 7 out of 10 on this one. Hell, maybe even a 7.5.

There are a few other goodies out there I haven’t been able to find, and unfortunately, I probably won’t see them timely enough to give them a “proper” review. But, we do still have a few tricks up our sleeves here on the site, so be sure to check back frequently for updates! Speaking of updates, if you haven’t yet, be sure to also check out the Halloween 2022 Journal that Derek and I started. It’s been kind of a nice change of pace. We can write about basically nothing and still have fun without having to carefully plan out an entire article. Thanks for reading!