Somewhat recently, I started seeing ads online for these and thought they were cute. I happened to find them in a local store over the weekend and couldn't pass picking one up. Plus, Labyrinth is seriously under represented in the merch department.
What you get is exactly what it says on the box: a 3" mystery reversible plushie. There are six in all including the door knockers, Ludo, a Firey, goblins, the worm ('ello!), and Jareth.
Of course, I'd be happy with whichever one I got, but I just happened to grab Jareth! His alternate form is the snow owl. You could have this on display and it would just be a cute plush owl to the casual person that isn't obsessed with Labyrinth. Turn it inside out and...
you've got the Goblin King himself! The hair is kind of fun, if not a little weird. He's got the pendant from the movie and they even gave him two different colored eyes.
The extra special icing on the cake was seeing the Labyrinth graphics inside of the box. One of the corners is marked "glue tab" so I think they intend you to be able to easily pull it apart to use as a display.
In addition to the other five mystery plushies, TeeTurtle also has larger ones: 4" Didymus/Ambrosius, 6" Jareth/Sarah in ballroom attire, and an 8" Ludo. They also have a whole line of mystery plushies including Sesame Street, TMNT, D&D, and Dark Crystal.
I will be talking a little about The Mandalorian and Grogu, but no spoilers, I promise!
Gatchaman Progress
Slacking this month and didn't watch any. Currently up to 77
Streaming
The Boys S5 (Prime)
Great social commentary wearing a cape. It may be the final season but they're still going strong with the over the top gore and gross out moments. They did an amazing job and managed to give a satisfying wrap up. Not sure if we need a prequel
spin-off series but I trust Eric Kripke and more importantly, Jensen Ackles
will be back so I'll be tuning in.
Maul: Shadow Lord (2026, Disney+)
I don't know if anyone thought it was a good idea when Maul showed up alive in
the Clone Wars series but they've proved that it was more than just a cheap
gimmick. Of course, if you're not up on your Maul history, you won't get as
much from this series but it's still really, really good!
This is essentially and 80s action hero movie with loads of effects, puppets,
and stop motion and I'm here for it. The great things is, they made this so
anyone can go see it but they also put in a ton of stuff that will have long
time fans doing the Leo pointing meme without it feeling like fan service. The
best compliment I can give it is that it's the kind of movie that will get a
kid to love Star Wars.
Rating: 8/10
Night Patrol (Shudder, 2025)
Justin Long continues to make his mark as a Scream King in this bad cops vs
street gangs flick with a vampire twist. The action and effects are great. The
final act goes a little wonky and doesn't seem sure which direction it wants
to go but it's still a good time.
Rating: 6/10
Thrash ((2026, Netflix)
The decent effects put this a notch above the average SyFy Original. The
characters are all fairly one dimensional and I was never really rooting for
any of them. They knew this storm was coming and didn't leave so that's on
them! The ending has a couple of eye roll inducing bits that are more action
movie camp than the rest of the movie which just made me sour on it even more.
Rating: 4/10, if you want to see this kind of thing done
well, watch Crawl instead
Continuing on into the 90s, this 6 hour documentary takes a look at some of
the iconic horror movies of the time. I LOVED the 80s version of this but this
one was a little bit of a slog for me. Not because it was lesser in quality
but because I wasn't as familiar with a lot of the movies covered. Still, it
was fun and gave me a few things to throw on my watch list.
Send Help (2026, Hulu)
Sam Raimi injects his dark humor into this mashup of Castaway and Misery.
Rachel McAdams may never be a convincing mousy/frumpy type but she's really
great when she goes psycho! I had a lot of fun with this one because it keeps
ramping up the crazy as it goes.
I was braced for the worst when starting this horror anthology. The opening
story is terrible, but thankfully only a little over 5 minutes and is the
worst of the bunch. The second segment (I Love You So Much, It's Killing Them)
is by far the high point. The rest after that are decent, and short, enough to
stay entertaining.
Rating: 6/10
Anaconda (2025, Netflix)
Not linking the trailer because it gives away some of the best gags in the movie! It probably could have been a little better story-wise but Rudd and Black help make up for it. There's a couple of genuine laugh out loud moments and at the end of the day, it's a perfectly fine movie to turn off your brain and have some popcorn.
I finally broke down and picked up the Gourd Horde figure from the
Stranger Things: Tales from '85 animated series line.
I haven't watched the show yet but it's kind of hard to pass up a weird,
pumpkin-headed creature.I'm kind of on the fence about the show. Of course, I'd love more Stranger stories and this looks like a fun 80s Saturday morning show. On the other hand, it introduces at least one new kid to the gang so unless they die, it''s kind of odd they never get mentioned in the main show.
Getting it out of the package was a bit of work. It's got way
too many of those elastic-y things holding it in the plastic. Once I got it
out, I was surprised at how much articulation they packed into this thing for a $10 3.75" figure!
I was just expecting a basic 5 POA, but no! The head has a good range of
up/down motion and it's got articulation at the shoulders, elbows, wrists,
hips, knees and ankles. And a bonus action feature: if you press down on the
stem, you can make the jaws chomp.
Granted, because this is designed to be a creature that lopes on
all fours, you can't really use that articulation to do as much as you could
with a bipedal figure but it's still cool to have options. The vines on the
back kind of give it a Carnage/Venom vibe. There's also "hidden" paint that
can be seen under a special flashlight (black light) that comes with one of
the other toys.
These guys would make good pets or a hunting pack of minions for 6" scale figures.
Or downright terrors when facing off against LEGO minifigs.
If you're looking to start your own Gourd Horde, I believe this line is a Target exclusive as that's the only place I've come across them so far.
