Spooky Snacks September 2025

We’re a little early for Halloween candy in its appropriate time, but also equally late to do my July article. Hopefully, there’s a delicate balance struck here or something, I dunno. This really should be in the micros section, but I need something to post this week.

BooStruck & Pumpkin Spice Popcorn

This is a seasonal faithful. Well, except for last year when I couldn’t find it. It was released, but I didn’t stumble upon it, so I officially count it as a miss. In any case, Moo Struck changes their title this time of year, retaining the standard chocolate milk but also adding a sugary vanilla option. Don’t be swindled by the labels. Sure, it doesn’t have any corn syrup, but 30 g of sugar is still twice what’s reasonable. Oddly enough, the other flavours only have half as much. I guess Halloween only comes once a year, so live it up.

Lesser Evil, on the other hand, is treading more cautious ground. As more snacky things opt out of the seed oil business, avocado or coconut is being used instead. I give this one a glowing endorsement, not only because it’s a guilt-free snack, but also because some of the kernels literally glow. They’re bright orange!

Alani Witch's Brew

I usually found this edition at a small, local grocery store. This year, there was no sign, so I wrote it off. Eventually, I found a few at a gas station and then a ton more at Target. Like always, the can has changed slightly, but the flavor remains the same—caramel apple.

New this year to the lineup is Pumpkin Cream. I’m guessing it’s a play on Orange Cream, which is no friend to me in any regard. Unlike the Witch’s Brew, these can only be had in a 12-pack containing both flavours. You can see that they weren’t even confident about the new one, since it’s in a 9:3 ratio. I could be convinced to pick up a single, for science, but I don’t need multiples lying around.

Rotten Gummeez

Since this site is primarily a health and lifestyle blog, the Rotten line of gummy things needs to be addressed. I first spotted them in my usual grocery store, in the holiday-themed aisle that changes with the seasons, a bit too early for my liking if I’m honest. The art style looked familiar, and the name ‘Rat Fink’ popped into my head. Seems I’m not headed to the dementia ward as soon as I thought, since I appeared to be right. Not the same illustrator, but the person responsible has some nice artwork on his Instragram.

As before, claims of health benefits and low sugar still produce 110 calories of some sort of sweetener with an exotic name. I found a novel diet hack, though, to cut down on the caloric intake, and it involved buying one and then taking pictures of the rest before calling it a day. It did have a sort of green tea taste and a firmer texture. No idea how the Nerds-coated one was, so that will be your homework for tonight.

Fanta Horror Icons

We arrive at the duality of form vs. function. I’m fairly sure that assessment isn’t accurate, but I’m referring to the packaging in contrast to the product. Fanta had a Beetlejuice 2 collab last year, where characters would adorn the bottles, and you would only be able to find two within the collection no matter how far and wide you searched. But the flavours remained the same; it was purely cosmetic.

I suppose that makes sense, since it’s much easier to swap the digital file destined for a label than to alter the formulas and deal with another round with the FDA, not that they aren’t going to come back and say the 35 chemical ingredients are perfectly safe to ingest.

The choices for the promotion are interesting. The theme is apparently Horror Icons, but they’ve opted to shake it up a bit. We first saw glimpses of Chucky on a fruit punch (I guess they did come up with another flavour, so please ignore my prior ignorance) and Jason The Halloween Guy (Thanks Teddy) on the pineapple box that no one will buy. I had heard rumours of a Freddy release as well, but not the 80s slasher version, rather the indie game character. Somehow I found that first. A sample gave me an instant headache, but I did find a box of Zero, so I’ll try that in time.

But things deviate further. Megan 2.0 joins the promotion for FNAF 2, leading me to believe these are movie tie-ins rather than just general homages. I’m unsure if there are new Child’s Play or Friday the 13th Halloweeeeeeeeen (Sorry again) sequels in the works. I recall there being a Chucky series, but I’ve been trying to dull those memories with acetone and a blunt spike ever since. That leaves the devil guy on the end of this image. All we can see is …CK PHO… So I can only assume it stands for STOCK PHOTO. Guess they drew this list up on a Friday, and the casual workplace attire got them a bit lazy.