I’ve decided not to do a Halloween countdown this year. Every year I spend a whole lot of time writing about spooky stuff for the thirteen days leading up to Halloween, and it actually makes me end up missing out on doing Halloween things. Binging on the Nightmare on Elmstreet series, eating copious amounts of candy and drinking beers with pumpkins on the bottles all take a backseat in favour of me writing posts on here. Seeing as I’m pretty busy this year writing for the Crash Annual and Fusion magazine,  I’m just going to write about spooky things when I find the time and really want to, and with less pressure, I figured I will probably enjoy it all the more. 

So here’s my first spooky post of the year!

There’s something undeniably Halloweeny about the Harry Potter film series. A gigantic castle, ghosts, werewolves, magic, broomsticks, potions, a lot of death, pumpkin juice, and evil wizards, it all makes for some very suitable viewing on a dark night in October.

I loved the books as a kid and I enjoyed the movies enough for me to beg my parents for the action figures when the first wave came out in 2001 for Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (I refuse to accept the American title of Sorcerers stone, as the Philosophers stone is an actual historical legend). By the time the second film came around, I was starting to pretend that I was too old for action figures, although I did get excited seeing an advert for Chamber of Secrets toys in the Beano comic, particularly a Dobby the House Elf which I am sad to say I still don’t own, despite it being a long time since I pretended I was too old for action figures.

One of the things I did see on the advert that I thought looked cool was the Slime Chamber Playset, a little scene in which you could make a giant snakes head dribble slime all over the Harry Potter figures.  Although I didn’t get one at the time of release, I did pick up a boxed one for a fiver off eBay last year. Slime is undeniably Halloweeny, so it finally felt like it was time to open it.

 

 

I really dig the pictures on the box. It kind of looks like the snake spewing slime on Harry is entirely Harry’s doing, as he’s giving his wand a little wave which looks like he is making the sliming happen, like he just turned on the shower or something.

From the box art, it is also very apparent as to how much like the Masters of the Universe Slime Pit this playset was, which makes sense as Mattel were the manufacturers of both, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with reusing a good idea. It even resembles the original MOTU Slime Pit!

 

 

 

I thought I had reviewed the Slime Pit on here, but this is apparently not the case, so I will try to sort this before too long. I just love any opportunity to play with slime and MOTU figures. But back to this playset for now!

 

 

 

I wasn’t very good at putting the Chamber of Slime together but didn’t realise this until a little while later, when it came to trying out the slime feature. Although very basic, the set has some nice detailing on the base which reminds me a lot of the 1983 Jabba the Hutt throne playset which also featured bones of small creatures moulded into the plastic.

 

 

As well as a few dead looking creatures, the base also features Tom Riddles diary with the basilisk’s fang stuck out of it. There’s also a little white strap which will secure a figures foot into place so that they won’t fall over when you dunk slime on them.

I expected the slime that came with the playset to have solidified like the Jabba Glob Phantom Menace toy I reviewed a while back, but it seemed to be fine. That’s the second time Jabba has been mentioned in this post, which is unintentional but it’s fine. Jabba is awesome and deserves all the mentions.

 

 

 

I had mentioned before that I hadn’t done a very good job of putting the set together. There is a little lever on the back of the set which will make the snakes lower jaw open in order for it to spill the slime out, but somehow I had put the thing together wrong so that if I so much as looked at the playset too hard, the snakes jaw would open. I didn’t realise this until I was putting the set back away though, so it caused me much ire trying to get the set to not just drop the whole load of slime on Harry’s head in one go without me even touching it.

 

 

 So without further delay, here is Harry Potter getting slimed on.

 

 

Beautiful. Just beautiful. The slime itself is supposed to glow-in-the-dark, as is the slime painted on the playset, but as it was daytime I really couldn’t get the room dark enough to show this off, which is a shame. The only thing more fun than slime are things that glow-in-the-dark, so luminous slime sounds amazing.

I really do like this little set, and miss the days of slime dunking action figures. I think this playset was probably from one of the last big toylines that utilized the slime thing, as I don’t recall seeing any modern action figure lines with slime playsets. It all seems to be about excrement themed toys these days, from ‘Fishing for Floaters’ to ‘Poopeez’ to ‘Flushin Frenzy’. Enough of the shit, bring back some slime themed toys!

 

 

I think that concludes my first Halloween post this year, more spooky things to make an appearance soon, if I can find the time and effort!