Happy Halloween! Boy do I have a trick and a treat up my sleeve (where it isn’t melting; just in my mouth) for you. In fact, the trick is the treat:

BOO! I’m not actually reviewing a cereal today! In fact, it’s nothing you should eat for breakfast at all—well, except on Halloween, when all servings can be called “fun sized” as long as you’re having fun eating them.

They’re called Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s, and based solely on the Faux-coa Krispies rendered on the bag, I’m calling this an officially unofficial Halloween Cereal. In vaguely spooky colors of red, orange and brown (why can’t they release special edition jet-black M&M’s filled with, oh I don’t know, glowstick juice?), Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s, otherwise known as C³M², are jumbo dark chocolate morsels filled with an aptly and vaguely named “Cocoa Crisp Center.”

All I’m gonna say before opening the bag is that, since Mars couldn’t be edgy enough to give Red the Beelzebub costume he was born to wear, they better at least make his bat-winged brooch the prize inside.

From the very start, I have to knock Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s down a few points for flagrant false advertising: I searched through my entire bag and didn’t find any of the telepathic spectral energy featured on the bag. In fact, I tried floating my bowl and spoon using only my palm, and all I got was an evacuation notice to escort my cat off living room premises in advance of a full chocolate detox.

But you know, I have to give those points back, because these are solid limited edition M&M’s. Well, not entirely solid; there’s definitely some respectable aeration going on with these candies’ elliptically wafered blood ‘n’ guts (I’m allowed to use visceral metaphors on Halloween).

Though I’m uncertain just how different these cereal-inspired crispy innards are from normal Crispy M&M’s, but I am shocked that it took M&M’s this long to make the no-brrrrrraaaaaiiiiiinnnner decision to swap standard Crispies for the cocoa kind. Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s should set a new standard for Crispy M&M’s, as the intermingling soft contrast between subtly cocoa-powdered pseudo-crunch and rich dark chocolate feels far more decadent than any dollar store coated morsels.

Given that the dark chocolate (which, granted, tastes like a mildly biting, 60% at best dark cacao) is the most prominent flavor note, it’s difficult to say just how accurately the filling actually tastes like cocoa crisped cereal—scraping the stuff out like pumpkin flesh is far too delicate an operation. However, when creamy dark chocolate and briskly accenting cocoa collide, I’m reminded of a slightly over-baked, homemade chocolate–chocolate chip cookie, the kind your grandma loaded up with chips and real cocoa powder to make sure the whole dozen’s dunk-drowned in milk before you can say “dibs on licking the bowl!”

It’s hard for me to find any pointed problems with Creepy Crisp M&M’s. Sure, they may not go super hard on the Halloween theming, but sometimes a reliable flavor combo is just what you need to make it through an Are You Afraid of the Dark? marathon without fear-retching up some gimmicky candy corn paste.

Put a bowl of these on your coffee table.
Put a bowl of these with milk out for trick or treaters (just take one, kids!).
Put a bowl of these in your family’s haunted mausoleum as an offering to Great Great Uncle Vlad.

Whatever you do, it’s worth giving Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s a shot. If anyone’s able to make ’em levitate, I live on the second floor, so I hope you’ve got both range and dedication to our shared cereal cause.

The Bowl: Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s

The Breakdown: A fun and simple Samhain sweet that doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but nevertheless brings no-nonsense nostalgia to an already popular M&M’s variety.

The Bottom Line: 8.5 cocoa clairvoyants out of 10