We all know that it’s fun to get something in the mail. Maybe it’s even a little more if you don’t really know exactly what you’re getting. For those that love spooky surprises there is a great new subscription box company out there for your needs called Creepy Crate. Brought to you by The Line-Up, Creepy Crate ships its boxes every other month and includes a variety of collectibles, from t-shirts and books, to homewares and accessories – all related to either the horror genre or true crime. Each crate is $39.99 with free shipping, and has an average value of $85 or more! You can purchase them individually or with a 6 or 12 month subscription.
While I really enjoyed the last Creepy Crate I received in October (check out what was in that box here), I admittedly was a little disappointed that there weren’t many true crime collectibles. For the Halloween season, the Line-Up skewed that box more toward horror. However, for this month’s box, they teamed up with Crime Con, a true crime convention that will take place in New Orleans in June 2019. Every single item in the December Creepy Crate was catered for crime enthusiasts and I couldn’t have been more excited to open it up. So let’s see what’s inside!
First up, we have this morbidly hilarious birthday card. It features infamous Psycho influencer Ed Gein with the phrase “All my suits are birthday suits.” Of course, Gein is well-known as a grave robber who would fashion gruesome accessories out of the skin and other body parts of the people he dug up and wear them. The card comes from Depressive Ghoul which makes “greeting cards for freaks and sickos,” and is made out very nice, thick cardstock and also includes a grey envelope. However, I don’t think I know anybody who would appreciate this as much as I do, so I think I will just keep it for myself. Check out other cards and enamel pins from Depressive Ghoul here.
I always love physical media as opposed to digital downloads, so I’m very grateful that Creepy Crate includes books in their boxes when they can. This month, it is the book from Skyhorse Publishing called Murder, Lies, and Cover-Ups by David Gardener. With the title and the tagline “Who killed Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Princess Diana?”, the book sounds a little bit like conspiracy theories to me, something of which I’m not a big fan. I mean, ideas like this surrounding these particular deaths have been around forever. But I’m obviously going to withhold any real judgments until I read the book, and the author sounds pretty legit. Gardener’s bio says he is a former Daily Mail foreign correspondent as well as the author of two other books. He interviewed key people related to the cases and dug into recently declassified FBI files, so it’s very possible that there could be some truth to his ideas after all.
I’m a sucker for a good pun, so I literally laughed out loud when I examined this next item. Here we have some chapstick with the Crime Con logo, and most cleverly named “The Unabalmer.” The lip balm itself is nice stuff, made out of beeswax and with SPF 15 sunscreen. This is definitely something I’ll be pulling out of my makeup bag and showing to everyone whenever I use it.
Just as I was in the market for a new wall calendar for 2019, Creepy Crate comes through with exactly what I needed and more. The next item in the box is this awesome calendar for the new year from the Line-Up featuring a different unsolved mystery or murder for each month. There are some very famous crimes included here, like The Black Dahlia, the Zodiac killer, and Jack the Ripper, but also some cases that I have never even heard of before, from many different time periods. Each page includes a short description of the crime, followed by the most believed theory of who was responsible or what really happened. Unsolved crimes are the most frustrating and also the most fascinating thing about true crime, so I can’t wait to look into some of these cases (a link is included for each one to read more about them). Perhaps what I love most about this calendar are the beautiful illustrations, all done by the very talented Amanda Shaffer, in a compelling black, white, and red design. An added bonus is that there is a little blood splatter on the actual calendar for the day of the month that each crime took place.
I was beyond ecstatic to find these amazing socks in the Creepy Crate box. They are a pair of black crew socks, criss-crossed all the way down with a yellow crime scene tape design. I’ve already washed and worn them, and they are of great quality. They are very comfy and warm, not too thick, and the perfect length. Now this is some apparel that I will be more than happy to sport to show my love for true crime – without scaring too many people away with my morbid interest. I love these socks! More items like this in the future, please!
The last item in this month’s box is also pretty amazing. It’s a standard size white pillowcase covered with sketches of three of the most famous serial killers in history – Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. There’s no information on who the artist is, but the likenesses are perfect enough that I recognized all of them right away. I sort of wish that we had gotten two of these, because most people have at least two pillows on their beds, but I am more than happy to have this nonetheless. This is the absolute perfect item for a true crime enthusiast.
The Line-Up really hit it out of the park with the December 2018 Creepy Crate. Every single item is a great collectible, many of which can be used and enjoyed by the recipients every day. The socks and pillowcase are definitely my favorite items, but all of them are perfectly catered to anyone with this particular interest. And if you’re reading this and are a little creeped out by me being excited about having a pillowcase with the faces of serial killers on it – just remember that none of this is about celebrating these people or what they did. It’s a fascination with the human condition that is really not unlike our fascination with the horror genre. I’m very grateful that Creepy Crate understands that and provides these boxes for people like me. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the next month’s box of goodies! To get your own subscription to Creepy Crate, visit their website!
