Carl’s Jr. is getting into the Halloween spirit with its new Ghost Burger. It features a charbroiled all-beef patty, ghost pepper cheese, two slices of bacon, sliced onion, lettuce, sliced tomato, pickles, and a soul-scorching sauce on a sesame seed bun. Unfortunately, mine didn’t come with bacon. Or maybe, because I couldn’t see, smell, or taste it, it came with ghost bacon.

Even if mine came with actual bacon, I don’t think it would’ve been enough to overcome what I believe is a mildly disappointing burger.

With having a “soul-scorching” sauce AND ghost pepper cheese, I expected this to pack a prickly spicy punch that would make my mouth need some fruit punch. But with every bite I took from the burger, I wondered if the heat would at some point scare my mouth with an inferno and a BOO. But it never got there. Boo. The sauce didn’t scorch my soul. Instead, it had some heat equivalent to lighting incense to purify my soul.

Oddly, I found the ghost pepper cheese more soul-scorching than the sauce. It had green specks throughout, which I assume are the ghost peppers, and just nibbling on a tiny piece lit a small fire in my mouth. However, eating the cheese on its own made me realize that the variety of vegetables between the fragile sesame seed bun was somewhat hot-blocking the full spiciness of the cheese and sauce, especially the onions, pickles, and head lettuce leaf.

The sauce’s flavor was surprisingly a bit bland. Its lack of fire could’ve been forgiven a little if it had a nice flavor, but other than some pepperiness, it didn’t have much taste despite being slathered on both buns. Heck, the cheese seemed to be more flavorful.

The Ghost Burger from Carl’s Jr. does not taste awful; it’s just a bit ho-hum. Besides the cheese and sauce, the single patty had a nice meatiness with a bit of char, and the vegetables were fresh and crisp. But if you want a burger with a lot of flavor and heat, you might be disappointed, like trick-or-treaters receiving only Smarties and SweeTarts on Halloween. Booooo!

Purchased Price: $8.49*
Size: Single
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 720 calories. No other nutritional information was available on Carl’s Jr.’s website.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.