I took the money I would’ve spent on candy and decorations (for the record, $23.57) and shot this review of Halloween Crunch instead. If you like it, please share it/hand out links to trick or treaters.

If you really like it, don’t forget to pick up a copy of my book. There’s a chapter on Frankenstein, so it also makes a great item for trick or treaters. Full text of the review after the jump.

Each year, in commemoration of the festival of Samhain, we are invited to take part in a feast of Crunch. It symbolizes transformation and the traces we leave behind. The ships of the damned come home to dock each All Hallows’ Eve.

Upon first gaze, the horror hits–our Cap’n is dead; there is no one to guide us. We are alone and hungry, staring at the ghosts of our past. We are dared to eat them, to ritually choke them back and make them apart of ourselves; make us whole, make us strong, give us diabetes.

The first bite is a metaphor for life, pain giving way to sweetness, the faint taste of blood ever present. Tears swell at the edge of your eyes, only to be rebuked by the delicious reward of your struggle. The ghosts of the past crushed under the weight of present pain.

The remaining ghosts float in the dead white sea of milk, leaving a subtle trail of ectoplasmic green in their wake, their orange covering simply a camouflage, disguising their true colors. We are all ghosts of our former selves. We all hide in plain sight.

The back of the box invites you to take part in the archaic maritime ritual of carving the visage of your dead Cap’n on the fall harvest. Placing the hollowed gourd on your porch–a single electric tealight inside representing his soul–invites the teenage scallywags to destroy him anew, setting his spirit free. In the end our light is shared with the universe; it is freed from the prison of the body to sail on the ocean of dreams.

And in the end, there is nothing. No ghosts to haunt us. No Cap’n to save us. Our stomach is full, but it won’t last. Our bowl is empty now and return to emptiness, it always will. The harvest always comes; the harvest always ends. The physical wounds on our palette heal, the tiny cuts and abrasions like whispers in a howling wind. But the emotional scars linger forever, haunting us with the memory of the Halloween Crunch.

I give this cereal 4 and a half stars. It would be perfect with crunch berries.