Review #2 Monster High Haunted Getting Ghostly Spectra Vondergeist doll

First of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  I know mine was good, but having a family that doesn't really "get" my hobby my Christmas doll haul was small, but I've resolved to not dwell on it because the one doll I got was one of my holy grail dolls (as in, a doll I really wanted but knew I may never get), Haunted Getting Ghostly Spectra Vondergeist!

This Spectra doll, one of the five dolls in the "Getting Ghostly" line that accompanies the MH movie "Haunted" that was released this past spring, is one of the most elusive Monster High dolls.  At one point she appeared to only be available in the UK, which makes no sense to me because the dolls are manufactured by an American toy company, but that's beside the point.  It wasn't long before she became available in Australia and other European countries, but it still seemed as though she simply didn't exist in the US, which is why I was surprised to not only find her on Amazon, but for a reasonable price too!  I was in for the shock of my life when I unwrapped her.  Like I explained before, I wanted her really bad but knew in the back of my mind I may never get her.  Okay, enough backstory talk.  Time to review this doll!

Unsurprisingly given her previous releases, Haunted Spectra's outfit is primarily purple and silver, which complements her purple hair and alabaster skin, but her chains, which previously have acted as an accessory, take center stage.  Her purple, fuchsia and gray dress, styled in the fashion of a stained-glass window, has a chain overlay.  The chains conform with her figure from the chest (where they begin) to the waist, then they branch off into free-flowing chains adorned with various shapes including a ball, a key and a lock.  Her shoes are made entirely of chains and take on the form of a gladiator sandal.

Front and back

To my understanding, there are 2 different versions of this doll, with mine being the "American" version, which has a different face mold than the "European".  While it's true that my Spectra has more subtle eye shadow and higher eyebrows than the doll available in Europe, it doesn't change her look drastically, even if the European version is more true to the way she appears in the movie "Haunted". Her eye shadow is still the same color and she sports the same dark rosy lip from the movie which gives her a dramatic-and honestly, haunting-look.  Besides, even the European doll isn't 100% true to the movie.  Both versions of the Haunted Spectra doll have loose, bouncy curls whereas in the movie she has big, vintage-y curls, but that change is understandable because I imagine it would be hard to replicate such a hairstyle on a doll.

I realize I went off on a bit of a tangent about the American vs. European version of this doll without even having images to back up my argument, so enough about that.  Anyway, like all the other dolls in this line, Spectra comes with a translucent blue stand that makes it look as though she is floating, which from a conceptual standpoint is really quite awesome, because it really gives the doll a ghostly feel (which she should by all means have), but I feel like the "ghost" stands don't hold the dolls as well as the generic black ones do, so I wish that they were better designed, but that doesn't in any way detract from this doll's appeal!

Close-ups of different features

Overall, I am totally in love with this doll and I'm so glad I got to add her to my collection!  Unlike my other "holy grail" dolls (which are mostly San Diego Comic-Con exclusives), she is very easy to find and reasonably priced, which gives me hope that I can add other "hard to find" dolls to my collection in the future! 

Another photo of Spectra, just because :)
here you can really see how dramatic and ghostly she is.