Doll Review: Monster High – Ghoul’s Night Out 4-pack

Ghoul’s Night Out is a line of six Monster High dolls dressed to “paint the town dead.”  The characters in this series are Rochelle Goyle, Spectra Vondergeist, Lagoona Blue, Clawdeen Wolf, Ghoulia Yelps, and Venus McFlytrap.  Rochelle, Spectra, and Lagoona are sold separately; Clawdeen, Ghoulia, And Venus are only in the 4-pack (along with Rochelle), which is exclusive to Walmart (Asda in the UK).

I gotta say, this is one of my favorite Monster High lines.  All six of the dolls are really appealing to me; they have great, detailed outfits with metallic accents and cute accessories, and their hair & faces are all wonderful and sufficiently different from other versions of the characters.  Usually I find myself only liking a couple of dolls from each line, but I would buy all 6 of the GNO dolls if I had the money.

Because I’m in Canada, my dolls come in international packaging that does not have all the flavor text of the American version.  Monster High does a really cute job with most of their text and characterizations, so here’s what’s on the American box for this set:

“After a week of killer final exams, these ghouls are ready to blow off some scream; they’ve put together a plan that will maximize every minute of their weekend.  They’ll be dressed to thrill in their freakishly fabulous best, ready to paint the town dead… as long as they can make it back home for curfew.”

Here’s what my dolls looked like with the outer box removed:

The GNO 4-pack does not come with stands, diaries, or the makeup compact and perfume bottle like the single dolls have.  Considering that the single dolls are $25 and the 4-pack dolls work out to less than $15 each, I’m really not mad about the missing items (the international diaries are terrible anyway).

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So, on to the actual reviewing.  Let’s start with Ghoulia – GNO is hands-down my favorite doll of this character.  Her face is remarkably friendly-looking in person, which I’m really happy about since most Ghoulia dolls look like bitchy supermodels to me, whereas her art and animated character are super cute and sweet.  It’s about time they started making her dolls look a bit kinder.

Ghoulia is wearing a metallic blue mini dress with black fishnet puff sleeves, a red collar, and a black bowtie.  The dress has a ruffled black overskirt  with a metallic red & white glasses print, and white suspenders.  It looks like the overskirt would be removable, but it isn’t.  I’m really disappointed that it isn’t a separate piece; it would have been so simple for them to make it separate and would have made the outfit so much more versatile.  The dress is adorable and stylish though, and the print on the ruffled skirt is quite charming and much cuter in person than it looked to me in online photos.  The issues I have with Ghoulia’s outfit are that the suspenders are a little baggy and crooked, and the dress keeps her legs from spreading apart more than a few millimeters.

Ghoulia’s accessories include a red headband, red brain-shaped earrings, three small bracelets (2 white, 1 red), an “icoffin”, red glasses, and her shoes.  The glasses don’t stay on at all; they’re stretched out by the way they had them held on in the packaging, and are too wide to sit on her ears.  The glasses also made a little pink stain on her face where they were touching her in the box.  It was really hard to see if her faceup was nice in the package because of the glasses, too – they should have just put them in the box separately.

I love her shoes.  Because Ghoulia is a zombie they’re a little gory, with the upper looking like a cage of bones, and the soles look like brain matter.  They’re an identical re-release of Ghoulia’s Dot Dead Gorgeous shoes, but since I don’t have that doll and don’t care to, I’m really happy to have these shoes on this one.

Her ponytail came out of the box kinda tangled but the hair itself is nice and soft, if a tiny bit greasy-feeling.

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The first thing I noticed when I deboxed Venus is her hair.  Her hair!  OMG it’s so soft and silky; I’ve never felt doll hair this nice before, and it’s wonderful.  The style is really cool too, and the color is so vibrant.  She is probably my favorite of the set overall.  Her faceup is very similar to the signature doll; the eye makeup and lips are a tad lighter and pinker (and match her hair perfectly), with a dusting of glitter above the eyeshadow.

Venus is a plant monster, and this version of her is rose themed.  She’s wearing a one-sleeved pink & metallic black minidress that has a thorny vine print on the bodice and a ruffled skirt.  I like the melding of Venus’ punk aesthetic with the high-fashion cocktail dress theme.  I do wish the black ruffle on the dress was a little lower down, because it is so puffy that you can see where the pink ruffles are sewn onto the dress.  Actually, I wish the pink ruffled part of the skirt was fuller and fluffier, like the box art.  This is still the least tight dress of the group though – Venus is the only one who has some real movement capability.

This doll also comes with metallic black legwarmers (same fabric that’s on her dress), a spiky lime-green belt & matching bracelet, 3 rose earrings on one ear & a vine earring on the other, a rose-shaped purse, an “icoffin,” lime-green shoes, and removable vines on her lower arms.

I don’t care too much for Venus’ shoes; they’re supposed to resemble a rose bush I think, but the art doesn’t translate into 3-d very well, especially with the lazy factory paint job.  They remind me of Tinkerbell shoes or something.

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Her eyes look very different than previous versions of this character, and even from the stock photos of the doll; they’re much larger and a bit closer together, and she looks a little starey from certain angles.  She’s still very pretty though, with light purple eyeshadow with a hint of glitter, and dark red lips with painted fangs.

Clawdeen is wearing a black halter minidress with a metallic gold zipper print, and a sheer purple & black zebra-striped tee with matching armwarmers.  She also has a spiky gold headband, gold & black earrings, a wide spiky black wristband, a small yellow bracelet, yellow paw-shaped purse, “icoffin,” and light purple open-toed shoes.

Clawdeen’s shoes are new for GNO, as far as I know, and the design is really cool.  I do wish they’d painted the zipper part gold though.  The purse she comes with is bright yellow and shaped like a paw print; it’s cute, but does not go with this outfit at all.  I love her headband and will definitely keep it on her, even though it’s not very visible with this particular hairstyle.

Her outfit is awesome, though the narrowness of the dress presses her legs together, and the fake zippers don’t necessarily read as zippers as well as some of the outfits they’ve put her in before, like the entrepreneur club fashion pack.  I love the overshirt and matching arm-warmers – fortunately they are separate pieces and not attached to the dress at all, and I can’t wait to try them with other outfits.  They’re made of stretchy netting and feel very delicate (the shirt would get ripped by a child very quickly).

Her hair is a medium/light brown with purple streaks around her face; it’s smooth and shiny, and the colors remind me of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  She looks great from the front, but the hair is surprisingly thinly rooted.  Her scalp was showing right out of the box, and the hair is thin across the whole back of her head.  I will probably have to style her hair in some kind of up-do later to hide the visible scalp.

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GNO Rochelle is just darling, and I’ve loved her since I saw the first online stock photos.  Her face is super cute, with those big eyes and soft makeup.  Her eyeshadow is light pink and has a little shimmer, and her lips are a slightly darker pink that matches her hair.  She looks so sweet and femme and adorable, and I really want to put her in a pink lolita dress.

She is wearing a one-shoulder mini dress with a black, white, and metallic pink scrollwork print and light pink vinyl ruffles at the bottom.  She also has metallic pink armwarmers, a black & white striped scarf, a pink & black purse, “icoffin,” two silver fleur de lis barrettes, and pink & silver shoes.

Rochelle has my least favorite dress of this set; it’s the only one I actively don’t like; I just find it ugly with the big shoulder ruffle, and the vinyl seems out of place. Her dress also presses her legs together even more than the other dolls in this line.   The stiff vinyl ruffles also don’t let her bend her legs – she can’t stand *or* sit in that thing.

This is the first Rochelle doll without bangs, and it’s a beautiful, simple hairstyle.  The rooting on my doll looks weird and bald under her ears, but this is my first Rochelle and I don’t know what it’s usually like.   The hair also feels greasy and heavy, and is definitely the least pleasant to touch out of the four GNO dolls.  Her hair kinda has issues all around, and she even lost some of it during de-boxing; I just smoothed her hair in my hand, and it started pulling right out.   It wasn’t a lot though, and she is rooted quite thickly overall, so it must have just been some stray hairs that didn’t get punched in all the way.  It does make me a little nervous about brushing her hair later; I hope she doesn’t keep shedding.

Her wings seem to be a little bit bent from the way they were held in the box and are not very symmetrical, with one sitting lower down than the other. They are made of soft plastic and insert into two simple slots on her back; a dip in hot water and some gentle bending should easily set them straight.

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Overall, I feel like the Ghoul’s Night Out 4-pack is a fantastic deal and I’m very happy with all four dolls.  The movement-restricting tightness of their dresses is a little frustrating, but they’re all so cute that I can’t really be mad.  Monster High is also usually really good about having functional handbags, but these ones are all mostly useless; that’s understandable though due to the budget nature of the 4-pack.

The quality of the dolls in the GNO 4-pack is on par with the other Monster High dolls I have, with only a few easily overlookable flaws. I love all of their faceups, with the soft, pretty eye-makeup and bold lip colors.  The printing on my dolls’ faces is all quite good, with only some very slight eye wonk on Venus and Rochelle and crooked fangs on Clawdeen (which seems very common on all her dolls).  I was very choosy about the set I bought however, and most of the other GNO packs had at least two dolls with more eye wonk than my picky little heart is willing to pay for.  If you care about that sort of thing, I would recommend looking very closely at the dolls’ eyes before you buy your set.

This is a great set of dolls, especially at less than $15 a piece.  They all have cute, complex outfits and a surprising amount and quality of accessories for a store-exclusive “budget” pack.  They also all have really nice hairstyles and makeup that’s different enough from their other incarnations that I don’t feel like I’ve bought the same dolls again.  If you’re into Monster High at all, the Ghoul’s Night out pack is definitely a winner.