And the 2017 “Most Improved Monster” award goes to…Boo Berry!

Yes, it’s true, everyone’s favorite indigo apparition has stepped up his game this year—in my past two years of Boo Berry reviews, his dubiously ambiguous and ambiguously dubious “fruit flavor” has lived in Count Chocula and Franken Berry‘s shadows. Ironic, for someone who’s essentially an anthropomorphized blue shadow.

But before we give Boo his third annual taste test, I have an important announcement: Happy Halloween! May your night be full of macabre merriment and no fewer than 8 fun-sized Snickers—and by “fun-sized” I mean “king-sized” because that’s where the real fun is.

Closing out this monster cereal review trilogy feels like a fitting way to celebrate—that’s why I originally wrote this review by stupidly replacing every instance of the “oo” vowel sound with “boo,” but switched back because it was unreadable.

Okay fine, I didn’t actually do this—but self-deprecation is the key to successful blogging, and man I sure am dumb!

Let’s be real: I can’t confirm whether Boo Berry got better, or if my taste buds just adapted, but Boo’s mixed berry flavor seems more robust and tropically pleasant this year. The typically overbearingly corny ghost pieces are a little crispier, their artificial blueberry glaze is slightly more pronounced, and the sheet ghost “Monster Marshmallows” are bigger—giving the whole cereal a sweeter “berries-to-cream” faux-yogurt ratio.

Maybe it’s just the spirit of 10/31 infecting me with morbid positivity, but eating Boo Berry today feels like crunching on solidified blueberry Go-Gurt (with a touch of grape and blackberry), and since I think that’s what 2nd grade me said he wanted to be when he grew up (an actual tube of crunchy Go-Gurt), I’m giving Boo Berry props for making my dream come blue.

But it isn’t all evil grins and maniacal laughter. Boo, like all three monster cereals, still has critical flaws. The pieces are hyper-aerated and sometimes release a stale berry–corn air that tastes like (I’d imagine) the insides of a piñata. Likewise, while the marshmallows may be chunkier, they still lack the Lucky Charms-esque snapping crunch that separates great cereal marshmallows of integrity from the ones that just sort of mushify in milk—a sight so sad it made me invent the word “mushify” to properly describe its infamy.

And speaking of milk, Boo is best left out of it—like all monster cereals and monsters in general: I mean, haven’t you seen It Follows? That poor thing!

When properly soused and doused in dairy, Boo Berry’ subtle flavor glaze melts away like a vampire in a tanning salon, and the marshmallows become bloated puddles of gelatinous sugar. Worse yet, the air-pocketed ghosts become swollen, soggy, and spoiled in a distinctly Violet Beauregarde fashion. In fact, after eating Boo Berry with milk—essentially bland, runny cornbread batter—I swear I heard a singing Oompa Loompa chastise my foolishness.

To boost Boo’s flavor amperage, I did the same thing I did earlier this season with his other two monster stooges. I hedonistically made a Pop-Tart s’more with pan-seared cereal marshmallows. This one tasted just like a double-decker Blueberry Pop-Tart that was iced with the filling from a Double Stuf Oreo. SO even though it probably took 10–31 years off my life expectancy, I’m calling this one a win.

So in the end, Boo Berry works better as a dry, snacking side dish for your popcorn during Michael Meyers marathons than it does as an actual breakfast. Boo Berry gets more points this year for compounding his nostalgic flavor with subjectively larger marshmallows, but alas, he still can’t dethrone the Count from my top monster cereal slot—just as the Count will never exorcise my unbeatably sweet memories of Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy.

No matter what you munch—go ahead and fill a bowl of candy corn with milk: earned it—I hope you have a happy Halloween. If you have a cool, cereal-themed costume, feel free to share it with us on social media. Otherwise, I’m just going to pretend that every one of the 7.59999 billion people I don’t know in this world dressed up as Cap’n Crunch.

The Bowl: Boo Berry Monster Cereal (2017)

The Breakdown: With a subtle dash of berry glaze and a honkin’ helping of sweet sucrose nuggets, Boo Berry makes for a seasonally appropriate treat that nevertheless can’t hold up against other cereals during non-spooky times—let alone in milk.

The Bottom Line: 7 professional Go-Gurters out of 10