Halloween: Our Favorite Spooky Pokémon

Happy Halloween, folks! You may have not remembered it, but back in February, the Pokémon series hit its thirtieth anniversary! We’ve been catching ‘em all since 1996! And while Source Gaming is not one to focus on anniversaries, it seemed right to pull out the stops for Halloween. Because Pokémon and Halloween go together like Blissey and Skarmory, like Plusle and Minun, like Kanto and Johto. So we decided to answer the internet’s favorite Poké-Question: who’s the spookiest Pokémon? We came up with a delightful array of answers, from classics of the original 151 to relative newbies (though no one picked anyone from Gens VIII or IX. Not even Greavard!). They’ve got exactly the kind of attitude you want in October.

And for you hardcore Pokéfans, don’t worry: we didn’t only pick Ghost-types. We made it a priority.

Wolfman Jew: Let’s start off with the most obvious, popular, and perfect choice: Gengar. It’s the Ghost-type against which all other Ghost-types are judged. This specter with the Cheshire grin sports the single best design of all 151 original Pokémon; it’s timeless, mascot-like, and has an almost Ghibli-like quality of being specific but not overdressed. It’s also at the heart of a fan theory that ties it with Clefable, however real that actually is. And while that’s more than enough to make it top tier, it doesn’t hurt that it’s an absolute beast in fights. While the process of evolving Gengar has always been a bit cumbersome, I’ll never count it out. The original Ghost-type is just too great for me not to.

If Gengar embodies classic Pokémon design, Froslass shows us how successful the series is at getting specific and creepy. Like many of the creepiest Pocket Monsters, she’s a yōkai (specifically, the Yuki-onna), haunting icelands and caverns with a spectral mendacity. What I like about Froslass, beyond her amazing ability to fire off Ice Beam, is that every bit of her design feels specific. The oni-like horns. The arms that seem to form robes.

Despite the name, not all Ghost-types are ghosts. Some are haunted objects, some are undead monsters, and some are creatures that simply have a ghostly, spiritual energy. None of those describe Shedinja, the conscious, sentient shell of a recently-evolved Nincada. Nothing about Shedinja makes sense. From its barely animated behavior to its strange gimmicks—it’s immune to all but five Types but has only one Hit Point, and the methods to catching one are bizarre—it reads like a character born out of confounding internet lore. Most Ghost-types are supernatural. Shedinja is weird fiction, in the best and most unsettling way.

Banette, introduced in the same Generation as Shedinja, is more traditional: a raggedy-ass doll haunted by a hateful wraith. I would refer to Banette as the “hard sell” when it comes to horror. It’s a gross doll with a zipper for a mouth who lives in trash cans and is basically a hexing doll. You can almost imagine Game Freak going as hard as possible on this adorable little freak as it tries to make the perfect creepypasta ‘Mon. Unfortunately, Banette also has some truly terrible stats and moves. I don’t like to judge Pokémon by how useful they are, but Banette struggles to live up to its creepiness. Perhaps it’s best suited to avenues like manga, cartoons, and card games, where its design sings.

Now, when people discuss creepy Pokémon—and I’ve been on the internet; I know how much people like to do that—they gravitate to the Ghost-types. Of course they do! Ghost probably has the highest “hit to miss” ratio of any of the eighteen Types, and it’s the Type most geared to creepiness. But spookiness is not limited to ghost stories, and Pokémon Sun & Moon’s Shiinotic is a lovely example. This sentient bioluminescent mushroom lives in forests and ensnares victims with its light, but it’s the soft, unassuming design that makes it work. Shiinotic’s design combines mushroom, sprite, and even UFO imagery, and it comes together to create something really cute but eerie. It does seem like a creature that could be right out of view, encouraging people to enter the forest and find their doom.

Conveniently, another scary non-Ghost-type happens to represent another fantastic avenue of Pokémon horror. Nihilego is the first of the Ultra Beasts, Eldritch Pokémon that defy normal conventions for what we consider to be animalistic or even alive. In Nihilego’s case, it’s a floating crystalline jellyfish with no apparent sense organs and the ability to secrete a neurotoxin that kind of weakens its victim’s inhibitions. Its most notable moment in the series is possessing a company president not through mind control, but by simply and inadvertently exacerbating her worst instincts. As with the other Ultra Beasts, everything about Nihilego’s design seems born out of a desire to communicate a truly alien feeling, like we’re seeing the normal Pokémon of a terrifying universe. It won’t be the last one on this list.

On the note of a Rock-type, I wouldn’t be repping my name without adding a Halloween-appropriate werewolf, and that’s Lycanroc. It’s a wolf with three forms, the main ones being a friendly “Midday” wolf and a “Midnight” werewolf. The latter is that kind of really fun cartoon spooky, where it’s not exactly scary but adds a real festive, Halloween energy. Like, if you wanted to make Halloween-themed Pokémon art, you’d absolutely owe it to yourself to add Lycanroc. It’s even posed as though it’s holding an invisible bag of candy!

Hamada: One thing I enjoyed about Legends: Arceus is how its Hisuian forms focus more on the mystical side of Sinnoh than its climate. Lots of people expected hypothetical “Sinnohnian” variants to lean on the Ice type, so it’s cool how we mostly got Ghost and Psychic types like Hisuian Typhlosion or Wyrdeer. My favorite, however, also helps push the game’s hostile setting to its limit! Hisuian Zoroark feels like an anomaly in this series of loving mascots, with its hunched posture, mangled hair, hate-filled eyes, and odd red growths. Nothing about it is cute or endearing; we can only imagine the sorts of illusions it conjures with its Unovan cousin’s ability. My only real criticism is just that, since there’s only so much torment we can see it inflict in this franchise. Maybe that’s the point, though? Smaller projects like Hisuian Snow highlight how miraculous it is that humans can still befriend something so broken, which I think is neat!

Ultra Sun & Moon’s changes to their source plot boggle the mind, but one corner it definitely enriches are the Ultra Beasts. Alola’s invaders were cool from the start, but fairly tacked on and hard to appreciate without the Pokédex. It’s nice how Ultra gives us a taste of their homeworlds, especially when it comes to Guzzlord. This Dark/Dragon type always had a creepy feel to it, courtesy of its Zygarde parallels and ties to Looker’s dark past (the former might’ve been unintentional, but I love theory bait). Ultra Ruin puts a magnifying glass to all that; we’re made to tour a post-apocalyptic Hau’oli City and see exactly what a world full of Guzzlord looks like. Why is theirs the only world that resembles ours? Is this even their original universe, or just one of many pillaged by these locusts?! Thankfully, the ambiguous terror is balanced by one of the funniest anime cries of all time, so Guzzlord comes out the other side a very charming monster.

While on the topic of extraterrestrials, they’ve inspired the spookier Pokémon since the beginning! Psychics like Starmie and Deoxys tap into that fear of the unknown, but my favorite alien story has always been Kyurem’s. Unova’s dragon trio are the most mysterious of the pantheon, between their dubious origins and inexplicable ability to separate themselves. At the very least, Reshiram and Zekrom wear their beliefs on their sleeves, but what’s up with the husk they left behind? Said to have fallen to Earth within the meteor that carved out its Giant Chasm, this thing keeps itself busy by eating humans it finds outside Lacunosa Town. Whether that’s true or not, there clearly isn’t much going on behind its empty eyes… That’s what’s so cool about its Ice typing, passivity, and uncanny anatomy: it’s deader than any Ghost type on this list! The way it pitifully waits for anyone to return its pieces—give it any sort of purpose—is just sad. But that also makes its rare moments of cruelty all the more jarring, which is why it gets my vote for Pokémon’s scariest Legendary.

Remember when I called Kyurem the scariest Legendary? Toss all that out the window, because it’s time we discussed thalassophobia… I don’t necessarily fear the ocean, but giant creatures associated with it scratch a very morbid itch! Pokémon’s early myths leaned on this hard with Kyogre, but I’m partial to its Psychic/Flying-type predecessor. I think it’s perfect how the fanbase treats Lugia as a nostalgic guardian angel, but isn’t it kinda intimidating? Although its classic movie and real-life relation to the late Takeshi Shudo add an undeniable mystique, it’s also a creepy sea serpent that’s visibly smarter than me! Waking the thing from its deep-sea slumber borders on horror in New Snap! If all this sounds hysterical and you want something conventionally spookier, there’s at least XD’s Shadow Lugia. After all, this Legendary’s range is why it’s one of the best in the series; I stand by its place on our list!

Cart Boy: Popular opinion, I know, but Mimikyu ranks among my all-time favorite Pokémon; this isn’t even the first time I’ve written about it! While Ghost types understandably dominate listicles like this, few fit the spirit of Halloween better than this one. Hiding its amorphous, black body underneath a cheap Pikachu costume in an effort to make friends is sweet and spooky in equal measure. The running gag in the anime where taking a peak underneath its rag temporarily leaves Meowth comatose is delightfully dark, too! Finding companionship can be challenging; same for being content with oneself. Mimikyu speaks to those vulnerabilities, explaining why it’s stuck around in a franchise with such high turnover. If its starring role in the upcoming Wild Card film is any indication, the lil’ lagomorph wannabe will never fade away.

Now, time for a confession: Parasect bugs me. Are you raising an adorable Paras, eagerly pushing it to evolve? Guess what: doing so effectively kills it. According to Parasect’s Pokédex entries and Super Mystery Dungeon, the massive mushroom on its back has sapped the bug’s body of energy and now controls it. Where Paras’s eyes brimmed with vigor and innocence, Parasect’s are glazed, soulless. In Pokopia and even the cartoon, the inexpressive elder bug seems immobile compared to its livelier counterpart. Usually, I associate the Grass type with serene souls, but this specimen shows nature’s unnerving underside. Succumbing to a parasitic infection is undeniably creepy, as is the idea that your buddy’s basically been replaced by a zombified corpse. Imagine if you were, too…

And that’s our favorites! Of course, this is only a short list of options; there are hundreds of Pokémon who fit the bill. Is your choice not here? Make sure to tell us below, and Happy Halloween!