Earlier this week, Spirit Halloween unveiled its 2024 theme, CarnEvil, along with its complete lineup of animatronics debuting for the upcoming Halloween season. On Friday, the Halloween retailer followed up the reveal with a first look at some of this year’s animatronics…albeit a very brief one.
The video, which debuted with various iterations across the Spirit Halloween social channels, is only seven seconds long. During those seven seconds, several images flash across the screen, many of which glimpse some of this year’s animatronics. They go by quickly, but I’ve saved you some leg work and captured some of the most relevant frames, along with my thoughts on who we’re looking at.
The Ringmaster
Being one of the first shots in the clip, this one could easily be looked over as an actor or as just scenery for the CarnEvil theme, but I believe the first thing we see in the clip might be a peek at the new animatronic The Ringmaster. The character, who appears briefly on the screen, wears white gloves with a red and gold coat and holds a gold skull-topped staff. This seems like a creepy ringmaster ensemble.
Barnaby the Bear
One of the first images to flash on a screen is a gold ball with stars on it. If you look closely, two furry feet are propped atop the ball. This leads me to believe the shot below is of the recently announced Barnaby the Bear animatronic, which will clearly be some sort of circus bear.
Nibbles the Clown
Following the gold ball is a brief flash of a clown animatronic with a lollipop as the main focus in the frame. Based on the name revealed earlier this week, my hunch is this is Nibbles the Clown. The clown in the background looks to have razor-sharp teeth, and the fact the top of the lollipop looks to be nibbled away would only be fitting.
Michael Myers
The next flash on the screen is brief, but it shows an animatronic in blue coveralls raising a kitchen knife. It’s a signature look for the “Halloween” killer, and it even features several bullet wounds, much like the ones Michael Myers suffers from Dr. Loomis at the end of the first film.
Cotton Candy Dan
After what appears to be Michael Myers, a bucket full of cotton candy flashes on the screen with what looks to be another clown-like character behind it. My hunch is that this is the Cotton Candy Dan animatronic that was announced. In this brief scene, the animatronic seems to lift a chunk of the cotton candy with the wooden handle plunged into the top, almost as if to reveal something in the candy itself, but the clip cuts away before you can see what’s inside. Perhaps there’s a surprise at the bottom of that cotton candy bucket…
Gravestone Ghoul
Next, we see a tombstone that reads, “In memory of our dear friend.” A zombie-like creature looks to be bracing itself from behind the tombstone, so I think this is the new Gravestone Ghoul animatronic.
Before any other animatronics appear in the video, Spirit flashes two clips that may allude to more past animatronics returning. The first is a pile of barrels marked as radioactive, which could allude to a few different animatronics from the past. The second is a poster of Monty, the six-foot monkey with cymbals, with the words “Alive” on the poster. Monty debuted in 2022, but it looks like he is still available on the Spirit Halloween website.
Creepy Towering Clown
This year’s lineup revealed a handful of animatronics in the “Blast from the Past!” category, including Creepy Towering Clown, last seen during the 2019 Halloween season. Creepy’s shoes flash on the screen briefly and look to be a more vibrant red than what I remember.
Mack Straw
After Creepy flashes on the screen, our view is obstructed by what looks to be corn stalks. As the camera peers through the thick stalks, we briefly see a scarecrow-like figure with a giant pitchfork. Unless this is some placeholder (like the giant Ghostface plush we see in the scene after this), my hunch is that this might be the animatronic Mack Straw announced earlier in the week. We are assuming, of course, that the “straw” in the name is like that used to make a scarecrow.
The Cremator or Demonic Gatekeeper
The next image flashed is just a skeletal figure holding a skull. Two new animatronics announced could fit this bill: The Cremator or Demonic Gatekeeper. The Cremator seems like a possibility here because of the fiery lighting inside the figure and the skull it’s holding. However, Demonic Gatekeeper is pretty vague, and I could also see a skeletal figure being a Demonic Gatekeeper, so it’s a toss-up on who we’re really looking at here.
The Corpse Bride & Victor
When Spirit Halloween announced its 2024 animatronics lineup earlier in the week, they listed “Emily & Victor” as part of the “World Famous Entertainers” at CarnEvil. My hunch was that these names referred to the lead characters in the stop-motion animated film “The Corpse Bride.” The quick flashes in today’s video confirm that. What’s still not clear is if this will be a two-figure animatronic or if the characters will be sold separately.
The final shot tied to one of the announced animatronics was Art the Clown from “Terrifier,” but all we get is a washed-out image of his face covered by the previous frame, which has “Art Was Here” scribed in blood on the wall. Other animatronics announced that didn’t appear to be part of the tease were returning animatronics Cerberus and Twitching Banshee and new animatronics Bobby Strings, Night Terror, Wanda Webworth, and Dark Princess.
I’m sure full reveals will start soon, but in the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed the little glimpse we got into the 2024 Spirit Halloween animatronics lineup. What do you think about my hunches? Is who I’ve highlighted in the sneak peek who you think we’re seeing? Let me know on social media!
