Five Creepy Pokemon to Get You in the Halloween Spirit

On its surface, the Pokemon franchise is about the joyful experience of capturing wild animals and training them to fight to the point of exhaustion. But anyone who’s taken the time to read the PokeDex knows that some of the lore surrounding these creatures is…disturbing, to say the least.

Let’s face it: there are a lot of creepy and terrifying Pokemon. From monsters that stalk children to ghosts of tortured souls, some Pokemon probably shouldn’t have a place in a children’s video game franchise.

So which Pokemon are the strangest and scariest around? We’ve read through all 800 or so Pokedex entries and picked out the five creepiest Pokemon of all:

Drifloon

At first glance, Drifloon looks like a weird animated balloon. However, these Ghost/Flying-Type Pokemon are actually some of the more sinister Pokemon around.

Drifloon are spirits of dead human and Pokemon, transformed into weird ghosts under unknown circumstances. The English version of Drifloon’s Pokedex entry explains that children often mistake Drifloon for balloons and grab onto them and then float away to places unknown. The Japanese Pokedex is a little more explicit: these children are taken to the “world of the dead.”

Basically, Drifbloom is the Pokemon equivalent to Pennywise’s red balloon: luring children into grabbing and then murdering them.  

Parasect

At first glance, Parasect seems to be just another Grass-Type Pokemon created by the harmonic relationship between a plant and an animal. As Paras, this Pokemon has bright eyes as it joyfully scurries around with two mushrooms on its back. However, its eyes go dull and lifeless when it evolves, which is the first sign that something sinister is going on.

See, Parasect is a creepy Pokemon because its animal body isn’t actually in control: the mushroom has totally taken Parasect’s body like a parasite. Parasect is basically a zombie Pokemon, controlled totally by the mushroom on its back as the mushroom consumes its life force. What’s worse, once the mushroom is finished with Parasect’s body, it forces the Pokemon to lay eggs infected with spores, thus prolonging a painful life cycle for another generation.

Phantump

A lot of Ghost-Type Pokemon are actually human spirits, but Phantump has a particularly disturbing and tragic origin. Phantump are the spirit of children who died while lost in the woods and possessed a tree stump. 

This Pokemon’s origin raises a lot of questions, like WHY DO SO MANY CHILDREN KEEP GETTING LOST IN THE WOODS? It also means that anyone who catches a Phantump is basically preventing this poor child’s soul from ever finding peace. How much would it suck to die in the woods, get transformed into a Ghost-Type Pokemon, and then get forced to battle other animals for a random person’s amusement? 

Sandygast

Sandygast and its evolved form Palossand are two of the new creepy Pokemon added in Pokemon Sun and Moon. The pair are living sandcastles, created from ill feelings formed on beaches.

However, it’s what Sandygast and Palossand do that’s so creepy. Anyone who touches the shovel on top of Sandygast’s head becomes possessed by that Pokemon and is forced to shovel more sand around the Pokemon to make it stronger.

In addition, both Pokemon can drain the lifeforce of anyone who sticks their hands in their mouths. Folks who place their hands in Sandygast will probably get away safely, but Palossand has an actual graveyard of bones underneath of people and Pokemon who it has sucked dry. 

Yamask

Yamask is probably the most explicit reminder that some Pokemon are actually dead people. Yamask actually retains its memories of when it was a human after becoming a Pokemon. What’s more, it carries around a death mask with it, created from the Yamask’s human face. 

Basically, Yamask is a Pokemon that was once a human, remembers that it was a human, and carries around a mask to remind others of its past life. Yamask even cries occasionally while looking at its mask, because it’s reminded of who it once was. AND PEOPLE STILL CATCH IT, DESPITE ALL THESE WARNING SIGNS THAT IT’S ACTUALLY A HUMAN SOUL.

What type of sick person would actually capture one of these Pokemon and use it to battle? Well, James from the Pokemon anime had one and eventually gave it to his boss Giovanni, so….I guess James really is a bad person after all.