Heidi Klum’s extremely serious approach to Halloween is a well-known phenomenon at this point, with the model and Project Runway star fending off all-comers for her self-styled “Queen Of Halloween” title every year, creating (and subjecting herself to) incredibly elaborate, very expensive costumes that stretch the bounds of practicality. Klum also knows how to milk the whole process for a lot longer than a simple sugar rush: Every year, she spends a big chunk of Halloween on social media, posting teases and glimpses at the costume before the big reveal at her regular blow-out Halloween party. Of course, that approach does have the effect of sometimes getting the hopes of some very specific corners of the internet way up, only to be dashed when it turns out that Klum has not spent, to pick an example entirely at random, thousands of dollars recreating the Lady Gremlin from 1990’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and has instead merely transformed herself into an insanely elaborate Medusa costume, complete with ambulatory snake-hair.
We mention the Gremlins thing mostly because it seemed to pop up a lot in the lead-up to Klum’s big reveal on Friday night, with every teaser post of her getting slathered in green, wrinkly skin having at least one comment, sporting like ten times more reactions than its nearest competition, guessing she was going to be the Lady Gremlin. (Who, we should note in the interest of journalistic integrity, has apparently picked up the at least semi-official name “Greta” in the years since the film’s release. People care very much about the Lady Gremlin from Gremlins 2: The New Batch.) To be fair to speculators, Klum has played in these nostalgic waters before, having gone as E.T. last year—provoking a weird competition between her and one of her most fevered Queen Of Halloween rivals, Janelle Monáe. Tragically, fans hoping to get their very particular itch scratched this year were ultimately disappointed, as Klum instead revealed herself to be well-known Gorgon-about-town Medusa, accompanied by her husband Tom Kaulitz—who tends to end up as a sort of living accessory for this sort of thing—as a Greek soldier who’s been turned to stone.
Luckily, when God closes one door shaped like a female Gremlin with big, juicy lips that really want to kiss a young Robert Picardo, He opens a window: In addition to the Megan Thee Stallion Greta costume from a few years back that we’re sure at least some of you were racing to the comments to remind us of, there was a fresh entry in the Greta stakes this Halloween: Former Little Mix musician Jade “JADE” Thirlwell, who debuted her own Greta costume on social media. Purists, of course, will quibble with Thirlwell’s decision to portray Greta as getting married to Gizmo—besides being non-canonical, the pairing is difficult to read as anything other than quasi-incestuous, given how Gremlins and Mogwai are born—but, presumably, it’s hard to find a good non-Star Trek Robert Picardo costume in late October on short notice.
