Rant Review: Hammer: House of Horror- The Mummy 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Aquarius, art by Joseph Smith)

I enjoyed the puzzle montage of classic Hammer horror movie posters I did last year, so I've had the trio of smaller puzzles featuring some individual posters from that montage for some time now. I saw this for an irresistible price last week! While this poster isn't a patch on the poster art for the 1932 Karloff-starring Universal original, it's quite moody and atmospheric, with a striking image offset by bold, colorful lettering and the requisite recoiling actress. Aquarius have cropped out the bottom chunk of the poster, so the credits (along with a sizeable portion of the actress) are missing. 

Putting this puzzle together unfolded pretty much as I expected: everything went together quickly and easily except for the titular mummy and the dark sky behind him. The highlighted areas of the mummy went together fairly easily and served as a staging ground, and from there, it was a matter of buckling down and brute-forcing my way through all those dark pieces. This was made slightly more difficult than it should have been due to all the false fits. 

It had been awhile since I'd done an Aquarius puzzle, and I'd forgotten how loose the fit tends to be with their pieces. The wonky piece shapes alleviated this somewhat, giving fewer possibilities for false fits than would otherwise be the case, but it still led to some annoyance. Pieces were very glossy, and several were bent or otherwise damaged right out of the box. On the positive side, there was not very much puzzle dust. Given that their puzzles routinely cost about the same as puzzles of comparable size from companies such as Ravensburger and Galison, this is not really up to snuff with the level of quality I expect for the MSRP. For the sale price I paid, however, it's pretty much in line with what I'd expect. If you enjoy these movies, or just like the art, these puzzles are definitely worth getting. Just be prepared for glossy and rather loose-fitting pieces. 

Rant Review: Peace 300 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Ravensburger, art by Michael David Ward)

I recently grabbed a few smaller puzzles from Ravensburger's Puzzle Moments line to serve as palette cleansers between larger puzzles, and this is the first of those I tackled. I really like the serene, colorful art, and while there are areas that would be a challenge in a larger size, at 300 pieces, it all just flew together. The quality was on par with the Ravensburger I did last week, though there was much less dust owing to the much smaller size. I can definitely see myself picking up more of these in the future! 

Rant Review: Squishmallows Squish Squad 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Buffalo Games)

I was obliged to take this one over when my little niece ran out of patience halfway through the sorting. She's done fine with the few 100 piece puzzles I've given her in the past, but this one was a bit overwhelming. My mom had pitched in and helped her assemble about 2/3 of the edge and a teeny bit of the interior before tapping out as well. (My mom has assembled many a puzzle in her day, but she just really wasn't feeling this one.) I neither know nor care about Squishmallows, but the art is cute and pleasant enough that I didn't mind putting this together. It was quite easy, and took me only a couple of hours to assemble the remaining ~450 pieces. The only slightly challenging bits were the vines and letters. 

I've had several puzzles from Buffalo, bought on clearance, sitting in my to-do pile for some time, but this is the first of their puzzles I've actually put together. The quality was not exceptional, but entirely acceptable for a cheap puzzle you can grab for under $10 at a big box retailer. There was only a moderate amount of dust, always a good thing! The pieces were akin to the thin, sturdy pieces you find in Galison puzzles. The fit was a bit loose, however, and false fits occurred more often than I would have liked. I had to reassemble parts of the edge due to this. This wasn't a pervasive problem, though, and I've encountered far worse-fitting pieces with puzzles that cost more than this one.  It actually passed the lift test, for a few seconds, anyway! 

Rant Review: Disney Villainous: Prince John from Robin Hood 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Ravensburger)

Don't check your brightness setting; this puzzle really is that dark on the left side! I struggled to get a decent photo of this puzzle, and I finally just accepted that, with my less-than-stellar photography skill, this was as good as it was gonna get! I knew from looking at the images online that one side of this puzzle being so dark would make this one a bit tough, but I went for it anyway. I'm not really interested in Disney much at all, but their 1973 animated Robin Hood has been one of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember. When I came across this-- on clearance, no less!-- I had to have it. 

The art is quite nice, and the dramatic lighting properly sets the mood of the piece, even as it makes parts of it much tougher than they would otherwise be. Some of those pieces on the left side are so dark that I had to shine a flashlight on them to make out any detail at all! While this made that section of the puzzle a bit difficult, it's tough to argue with the look of the final product. All those frames also ramped up the difficulty, as some are quite similar to one another. I knew those frames had potential to get rather tedious, but they were more difficult than I expected. Still, most of the puzzle is straightforward enough that I would rank the overall difficulty at slightly above average. I won't be running to do any of the other puzzles in this series, but if there is one featuring a character you really like, the tough bits are worth the trouble!

This was my first Ravensburger puzzle, and I was interested to see if its quality lived up to their reputation. There was a moderate amount of dust, certainly nowhere near what I was expecting based on what I've heard. I quite like the thickness and texture of the pieces, though the fit was not as snug as I expected. False fits were rare, however, and the puzzle passed the lift test! I have a few more Ravensburgers on my to-do pile, and the quality of this one is definitely encouraging. It was a nice change after a couple of my recent puzzles had a tendency to fall apart if I looked at them.