Love's Not Dead: Ghoulia Yelp and Sloman "Slo Mo" Mortavich

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Ghoulia Yelps? I think maybe I have... :P Ghoulia is definitely my favourite Monster High character, and whenever she gets a new doll I feel the need to celebrate it, since well...I feel like she often gets a bit forgotten. However, all of her dolls are pretty great, in my opinion, and so I was super excited to see that she and Slo Mo were going to get a two pack together! I've really loved the previous couples two packs that Toys R Us has done, the Picnic Casket set with Frankie and Jackson, and the Love in Scaris set with Rochelle and Garrott, and this one with Ghoulia and Slo Mo is no exception!

So let's put on our best outfits and get ready to go to prom at Monster High!

Here they are in their box! Fairly standard in terms of the new boxes, and I absolutely LOVE this art!

Look how cute they are! I love how Ghoulia really looks like her webisode self, and both of them have a bit of that slack-jawed zombie look to them.  Plus, they're just adorable together, and I am very biased :P I'm actually going to scan this art and print it out in a tiny size so I can hang it in the bedroom I made for Ghoulia. Which I should probably make a post about actually...

Look at them! Don't they make a handsome couple? They come with everything seen here, which means they don't come with stands. I do have a lot of stands, so this isn't really a huge concern for me, but it's still kind of annoying. Each of the previous two packs have come with stands, and even the Wheel Love set, which came out at about the same time as this set comes with stands, so I don't really understand why they were left out here. They also come with one shared journal, which is completely adorable (unless you have the disappointing international version, like I do.) Since my version only has one page of English, I found the full journal transcribed, and I think you should all definitely read it! It makes me love Mo and Ghoulia even more, which I didn't think was possible. They're just so sweet!

I'm going to start with Ghoulia, because, well, ladies first, right? This Ghoulia is really gorgeous, and honestly, she might be one of the prettiest Ghoulia's ever, at least facially. I love her whole look though, despite having a few notes, and I especially love the 50s/60s vibe of this outfit. I've always loved that Ghoulia's aesthetic borrows so much from those eras, because it reminds me of my personal favourite era of horror movies. It just suits her so well, and if it makes me think of Vincent Price or Night of the Living Dead, well...even better!

Here's a quick overview of her face and hair. Her hair is a bit darker blue than usual, and is styled up into a pretty severe beehive. It's a little more cone-shaped than I tend to think about a beehive being, but it's definitely a good approximation of the style in a playline doll. There is obviously a TON of styling product in this hair, A TON, but that's to be expected with something like this, and I wouldn't dream of taking down this hair, so I'm good with it!

In her hair, she wears a large barrette, featuring a black flower with a brain as its centre. It's rubber banded around the beehive, but it does have an attachment on the back, so it would be usable if the band was cut.

Her earrings are little red arms, that appear to both have been severed at the elbows, as well as having bites taken out of them. These are seriously hilarious to me, and I love them. They're so delightfully gory for a doll line and perfect for Ghoulia!

And her face. Her face! This is what I was talking about when I mentioned that this is one of the prettiest Ghoulia's yet. I'm bad at picking favourites, but...this one is up there. I love her smokey eyes with the touches of red and blue, but what really sells this dolls face for me and makes it amazing is a really subtle detail. In the lower centre of her iris, where the highlight is usually white or light grey, on this doll, it's red! Normally red eyes are not really  good look, but on Ghoulia, I love how it looks for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it just looks cool, but secondly, it makes me think that she's about to go into a zombie rage which let's be honest, is kind of a fun idea! And given that this is a prom themed two pack, maybe in this universe, in her rage, Ghoulia will break out into the Zombie Shake and start some dance fever! I do wish they'd deviate from red lips a little more often with Ghoulia, since her occasional forays into grey or blue lips are pretty incredible, but I can't argue that she doesn't rock a classic red well!

As always, Ghoulia also comes with her signature cat eye glasses. This pair is a new mold, which is always fun! The glasses are molded out of translucent blue plastic, so the lenses are blue, while the red of the frames is painted on. I love the blue lenses, they really make these glasses stand out from all of Ghoulia's other glasses.

Her necklace is a pearl choker, with two skullete cherries dangling from it. It's simple, but cute.

Her dress is simple as well, but it's very Ghoulia, and also very cute. Actually, it is very similar to Modcloth's Rad to the Bone dress, which I now think I may need to buy, for reasons. It's a sweetheart neckline dress with a mesh upper bodice, and a full a-line skirt. The dress is belted with a red ribbon, and the hem is cut in such a way that it resembles dripping blood, to me anyways. There's also a blue tulle underskirt with a jagged hem that breaks up the colour scheme of the outfit a little bit. The style of the dress is pretty simple and nicely made, but what really makes it is the pattern. All over the dress there are reaching zombie hands and heart-shaped ribcages, and I love it.

Her shoes are also new molds, and even though they're pretty simple, I really enjoy them. There's something cartoony about the design of them, combined with the solid, almost gummy red colour, and I think that's what appeals to me. The heels are an interesting curved shape, and there are four dripping straps across the front of the foot. I'm just so glad she got new shoes, since I feel like it's been awhile since she got new shoes...Freaky Fusion has recasts, Geek Shriek (review upcoming...eventually!) has recasts...the girl deserves new shoes!

And that's Ghoulia! I love her from head-to-toe, and my only complaint (as always) is that it's been so long since we had a Ghoulia doll, and hat at this moment, there are no Ghoulia dolls announced in the foreseeable future.

But I will cling to this one, knowing that if she's the only Ghoulia doll I get in 2015, at least she's a great one!

But enough about Ghoulia (for now)...I think we need to look at her man!

And here he is, all dressed up in...his finest? His version of prom finery, anyways!

Facially, there are actually some changes here which I think make a big difference! In his earlier dolls, Mo has pretty heavy paint right around his eyes, in an attempt to make them look sunken. On this doll, that same effect is achieved with softer grey blown out right to his brows, heaviest on the inner part of his eyes. I really love how this looks, and I think it looks almost natural. I hope this is a permanent change to his dolls actually, because it really gives him the look of sunken zombie eyes, but without the harshness of his previous dolls. Other than that, his face is the same. Worth noting however is that I had to go through all six sets on the shelf to find one where Mo didn't have black smudges all over his face. He was a mess in most of the boxes, and I'm not sure why or where it was all coming from. I would recommend buying this set in person, if possible!

Mo's hair is pretty familiar, the same basic paintbrush style of his Ghoul Spirit doll, but with an added black streak in the front.

Outfit wise, I've seen a lot of people....not complaining exactly, but having some notes on Mo's outfit, and I kind of disagree with them. He's wearing a purple tuxedo shirt, with printed on lapels, and a rib cage "shirt" printed underneath, The issues people have been having with this outfit are that the top is all one piece, and he's not wearing a separate jacket and shirt. Now, I totally understand this, and if his shirt and jacket were one piece but meant to look separate like Alistair Wonderland's, I would 100% agree, but Mo's outfit? I think it's hilarious, and I love it! Firstly, Mo totally seems like the kind of guy who would think it was funny to wear a tuxedo shirt to prom. If you read the link I posted above to the full diary, you'll see that Mo doesn't quite get the big deal with prom until he sees how important it is to Ghoulia, and I think this outfit choice totally speaks to that, and feels really true to character to me. Secondly, and this is just something that makes me laugh when I think about it, is that Monster High has shown us that zombies generally move pretty slowly. Now consider how many pieces there are to a tuxedo...jacket, shirt, bow-tie...and imagine how long it would take for a zombie to put that all on! Sure, a freaky fab ghoul like Ghoulia would spend the time to look goregeous for prom, but maybe Slo Mo wouldn't want to spend that amount of time....so he just throws on his tuxedo shirt! I think it's funny, and I think Ghoulia would be amused, so I'm totally on board with this shirt...long story long!

On the shirt, there is a torn pocket square coming out of the upper pocket, with a spider dangling from that same pocket. On Mo's right, there is a skeleton hand coming out of the lower pocket.

He's wearing black satin-y pants with a purple tuxedo stripe down the sides...

And matching, amazing purple shoes. The only thing that would make them better is if some of the details were painted, but hey, beggars can't be choosers at this point. I'm just happy he got new shoes! They have long squared off pointed toes, with drips coming down the sides, and spiderwebs on the heels. There's a lot of great details here, and a little bit of paint would really make them pop. Some black on the spiderwebs, red on the drips to tie in to Ghoulia's shoes...That's all it would take and hey, I might take on the challenge!

He also comes with this accessory, which is actually kind of something that is really for Ghoulia. It's a bouquet of brains, wrapped in black, with a handle for them to hold. They can both hold it, but it's definitely heavy, and Ghoulia in particular has an issue with her arm flopping over if it's not supported just right. I love it though, and I like how the brains are molded and coloured separately, rather than being painted. It really makes them very bright red and shiny. Also, I just love the idea of him bringing her brains like this. They're not flowers with brains in the centre, or even flowers that look like brains, this is just straight-up a bouquet of brains, and it's hilarious. Which brings to mind a question I often think of when watching Monster High...we've established that Draculaura doesn't drink blood, but clearly that other vampires do...so what about zombies? Do Ghoulia and Mo hunger for normie flesh and brains, or do they eat something else? We'll probably never know...

*moans and grunts* Ghoulia, will you go to prom with me?

Aren't they just the cutest couple? I'm so biased here, but I just can't get over how great they both look, separately as well as together.

I also had way too much fun posing these two, but I promise, I won't include every picture I took. We'd be here all day!

My attempt at recreating one of the pictures from inside their diary...a pretty great prom photo, I think!

I borrowed the background from their box for a few shots before it went in the recycling...

And I think it makes for a pretty magical background! What do you think they're slow dancing to?

But obviously, part way through the night the Zombie Shake takes them over and they can't help but give into it and dance like fools!

And that is everyone's favourite zombie couple, Ghoulia Yelps and Slo Mo, showing us all that Love's Not Dead! What do you guys think of this couple two pack? My opinion can;t really be trusted when it comes to Ghoulia, so I'm cuious to know if other people love it as much as I do!