So, thanks to my lovely wife, who decided to celebrate the Rube’s birthday early this year, I got my hands on THE HAUNTED HOUSE (online exclusive). This kit’s massive box contains over 10 bags of 2064 pieces, window and monster portrait stickers, and 3 (thick) instruction booklets. “WOW” doesn’t even cover my excitement as it took me 5 days/25 hours/3 seasons of Breaking Bad to complete this 16-inch structure of spooky awesomeness. I know that $179 for one kit is a lot, but check out this video to see all the fun things that come included with this build:
See, I told you that it was pretty cool. My favorite part was building all of the windows and the little accessories. Even after finishing this kit and adding the witch, spider, zombie and snake from Lego’s Halloween Accessory Set (#850487) I still want more pieces and add-ons! Maybe if I’m lucky, Lego will add more Monster kits in the near future.
Unfortunately, with all the good stuff there are a couple of disappointments. Even though my favorite things to build in this kit were the windows, some of them do not have clear plastic window panes and there’s not enough stickers for all of them. Also, I thought it was weird that you only get a couple of printed pieces to resemble nailed wood planks to cover the windows. The other half of the window boards are just dark brown flat plate pieces. Having half printed board and half plain brown pieces to board up the broken windows just makes it feel “off.”
My only other complaints are the two brown bushes easily fall off while you move, breathe around or look hard enough at this kit. It could have come with a few more accessory/portrait builds, a latch to keep the two halves closed, and there isn’t a spider to be found in this set. WTF?! Really LEGO, you include a spider web with a centered peg for… (I guess) a spider? Luckily I had an extra one. The only other thing that would have been nice to include would have been a grey/brown baseplate to attach the front gate and the Haunted House together, maybe leaving enough space to park the Vampyre Hearse infront or graveyard add-on for the back.
In conclusion, even with it’s small problems, this set kicks so much ass over the Vamprye Castle. Yeah, it’s about $80 more than the Vampyre Castle, but if you skip buying that and the silly ghost train (the Hogwarts train looks like a better build anyways), you’ll break even and have more fun building the Haunted House. Oh, I almost forgot, right now if you buy from Lego.com or at their stores, you get a free exclusive Zombie Car with any purchase over $75 and free shipping! Also, if you signup for their VIP Club you’ll get $10 store credit (if you spend $200+).
10/10 Broken Windows
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This article is part of the Countdown to Halloween blogathon, a month-long blogging marathon dedicated to honoring the Halloween season. For more information and a full list of participating sites, please visit www.countdowntohalloween.com.
