Editorials
5 Horror Cereals From The Past!!!
I hate cereal. I hate it when people eat cereal in movies, I hate how some long-haired dude in a bathrobe eating a bowl of cereal became shorthand for “cool slacker guy” in every f*cking movie since 1994. The only person who got away with this was Quentin Tarantino, since he basically started it Pulp Fiction. When I think of Kevin Smith movies, I think of people eating cereal whether it happens in them or not.
Caveat, I have recently started eating cereal, because I have discovered Almond Milk and I like to eat light, healthy grainy sh*t for breakfast during the weekdays. Without Almond Milk, I would have never started, because it’s gross to pour actual cow’s milk over empty calories and watch the whole thing turn into some disgusting sludge. Also, a lot of my feelings about cereal can be traced back to that time I watched The Toxic Avenger on cable in the 5th grade while eating Life Cereal. When they ran over that biker kid’s head with the car and took pictures of his brains… I looked down at my bowl of cereal in what might have been the worst accidental match cut in history. So maybe that’s why I hate cereal…
Anyway, you might remember some of these horror movie related cereals from back in the day when marketing held some sway over you by putting your favorite franchises on a box. Head inside for 5 Horror Cereals From The Past!!!
GHOSTBUSTERS
Innocuous enough (unless you look at the ingredients, I imagine), I like how the Stay Puft Marshmallow man offers a thematic bridge from film to breakfast table. Plus? Free frisbee if you got lucky! Burn off those calories!
JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD
I guess this only ties in in the sense that Dinosaurs historically loved marshmallows. No? Well, at least the marshmallows are shaped like dinosaurs. Plus, there’s a chance the box might ROAR!! Kinda like your old Frankenhooker VHS. “Wanna Date?”
THE ADDAMS FAMILY
I can’t quite make out what that advertising plan on the right panel says, but I imagine it’s diabolical. I wouldn’t eat this cereal because I imagine it’s boring. However, if you put Addams Family Values cereal in front of me, I’d give it a shot assuming it fixes any problems the original cereal might have had.
SLIMER AND THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS
Even the “title rights challenged” Ghostbusters TV Show had its own line of cereal. I bet this one was full of substitute ingredients that could never match the superior, early cereal.
HALLOWEEN CRUNCH
Okay, it’s not from a movie. But it advertises that it will turn your milk green. It literally uses this as a selling point. More terrifying than A Serbian Film.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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