Do you like scary movies?

Follow-up question? Do you like novel soda flavors?

If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then this is the movie-adjacent article for you. Because the mad food scientists at Fanta are at it once again, hatching up a new soda concoction themed to a horror icon in honor of Halloween.

Last year, they had a whole line of Fanta Halloween cans. They added slasher movie villains like Michael Myers and the Grabber to familiar flavors like Fanta Pineapple and Fanta Strawberry, and the invented a whole new varietal — “Chucky’s Punch” — for the star of Child’s Play. 

They pulled a similar stunt this year, although now most of the characters on the cans are taken from “Fanta’s Haunted Universe,” which are four “original characters inpisred by classic Halloween legends, each with their own unique powers and personalities.”

In other words, instead of spending a ton of money to license characters from Blumhouse or some other Hollywood studio, Fanta made their own versions of famous horror characters they can control in perpetuity, and then threw in one big-name talent to headline the year’s new flavor: Ghost Face Punch, emblazoned with the likeness of the indefatigable Scream star.

What Is Ghost Face Punch?

READ MORE: I Also Drank Fanta’s 2025 Halloween Sodas

While I have eaten and drank a lot of movie-inspired foods over the last ten or so years, I can’t say I could tell you with any authority what I homicidal maniac in a white mask tastes like. What will happen when you distill him, carbonate him, and shove him in a can? I’m about to find out.

For the record, Fanta says Ghost Face Punch is “a juicy clash of dark berries that are tangy and impossibly tempting.” They also promise that after “one sip ... you won't be able to get enough,” because it is “so delicious” that “your tastebuds [will] play tricks on you.” Okay Fanta, let’s pump the brakes here a little bit. It’s soda. Take it easy.

For this taste test, I am being joined by my daughter. She has never seen a single Scream film, and she’s only vaguely aware of Ghost Face as a Halloween costume that one kid in her class wore to school last year which kind of freaked her out. But she doesn’t get to drin a ton of of soda and — perhaps not coincidentally — she leaps at any chance to have some, even when it involves a juicy clash of dark berries. So we’re going to share some GFP for the first time on camera and tell you what we think.

The Taste Test

The Final Verdict

The publicity photo was not messing around; this soda is purple. Now, you might ask: What does a drink the color of a melted grape Jolly Rancher have to do with Ghost Face? I don’t have a great answer for you. Blood red would be the obvious way to go — but Fanta’s Chucky’s Punch last year was red. Maybe they didn’t want to repeat themselves (or make their customers think they put the same beverage in a different container, the beverage equivalent of adding John McClane to a generic cyber thriller script and declaring it the new Die Hard sequel).

Having said that, the unnatural hue of this liquid gave me a jump scare that would have made the late Wes Craven weep with envy. That color is scary, at least if you know you’re about to put it into your body.So from a certain perspective, it does kind of work with the horror theme.

And then came a surprise worthy of a third-act twist: the Ghost Face Punch flavor was actually delicious. The sweet and tangy berry combo reminded me of the Minute Maid grape punch I used to drink as a kid.

Ghost Face Punch was a hit with my daughter too, who presented me with her empty glass as proof that she was now mature enough to watch the Scream movies. (Nice try, dude.) My wife, who wasn’t on camera, took a sip after we stopped recording, and she loved it too. Often when we taste weird drinks for content, whatever’s left over after the camera stops rolling winds up poured down the drain. In this case, the three of us fought over who got to finish the can. We drank every last drop.

Plus, in every Scream movie Ghost Face is always who you least expect it to be. The handsome boyfriend or the dogged police detective turns out to be the deranged killer. Similarly, Ghost Face Punch looks like something brewed in a witches’ cauldron — but it’s actually quite refreshing. Yet another horror-movie parallel!

(Hey: Do toxic levels of purple food coloring in your bloodstream make you delusional? No, I’m not asking for any particular reason, why?)

If you’re interested in trying this beverage for yourself, Ghost Face Punch is now available nationwide. A press release says you should be able to find it “at grocery stores, mass merchandisers, convenience and gas stores, drug stores, and in select foodservice, on-premise, and e-commerce sites.” But if your name is Sidney, I’d probably just stick with Fanta Orange just to be safe.