Frightgeist Reveals This Year's Scariest Costume Trend

The most-searched Halloween costume in America this year is a murderous unicorn. Google released its annual Frightgeist trends on October 14, and the list of costume searches that spiked this September is led by Buddy the Unicorn, the bloodthirsty mascot from the horror film Buddy, according to the company's announcement.

That ranking says a lot about what filled everyone's feeds this year. The list is built by comparing September search interest with the same month last year, so it captures what is newly hot rather than what simply sells every October. And the unicorn's lead is historic: Google says searches for the Buddy costume passed searches for a plain kids unicorn costume for the first time this September, meaning the horror version has officially overtaken the cute one.

The top ten, from a killer unicorn to a disco dog

Right behind the unicorn sits a stress toy. NeeDoh, the squishy sensory ball that has colonized desks and backpacks everywhere, ranks second, with Google reporting its searches are higher than ever this year. Third is Nikki from Obsession, a sign that this season's scares are being driven as much by movies as by memes.

Fourth place belongs to Agamemnon from The Odyssey, the ancient Greek king who is apparently having a moment: his costume was searched three times more than Penelope's this year. Fifth is Lily Love Braids from Poppy Playtime, continuing the horror-game pipeline that has been feeding Halloween for years. The rest of the top ten rounds out with singer Oliver Tree, Verity from Minecraft, Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl, Disco Scooby-Doo and Hazel Hook from Descendants.

The top 25 keeps mixing new hits with old legends. Captain Clark from the Backrooms mythos, Thragg from Invincible, Kenny Rogers and Bowser Jr. all made the cut, alongside Dolly Parton. And one nostalgia pick is surging harder than it has in a decade: searches for a Michael Jackson costume in his Thriller era are at a ten-year high this year, according to Google's data.

It is not just costumes: punch, cauldrons and dry ice

Frightgeist tracks more than outfits, and the party-planning searches are their own little window into the season. The top trending Halloween drink is "witches brew punch," while search interest in a "cauldron crock pot" has climbed to an all-time high. On the effects side, "how to make a bubbling cauldron" is a breakout search this month, and the perennial "where can I buy dry ice" is once again among the top "where can I buy" Halloween searches, spiking like it does every year.

The watchlist data tells a similar story of old favorites meeting new obsessions. Searches for nostalgic Halloween movies have risen year over year since 2019, and this year's top trending horror-movie searches are "gothic horror movies" and "mascot horror movies." The mascot-horror spike lines up neatly with a costume list topped by a killer unicorn: the same characters haunting the screen are the ones people want to dress as.

How this year compares to last October

A year ago, the Frightgeist list looked completely different. The 2025 rankings were dominated by KPop Demon Hunters, with Rumi, Zoey, Mira, Jinu and Baby Saja taking the top five spots, joined by the Chicken Jockey from Minecraft and the furry Labubu craze. It was the year of animated fandom costumes. This year, horror-movie characters and internet-native oddities have taken the crown instead, a swing from cute to creepy that mirrors how the year's biggest films landed.

There is one caveat worth keeping in mind before you treat the list as a sales chart: as Orbit Post News noted in its rundown of the rankings, Frightgeist measures search interest, not purchases. A costume can trend because people are curious, confused or making memes about it, not necessarily because they are buying it. Still, for anyone costume shopping at the last minute, the list is a useful map of what will be recognizable at the party, which is half the battle on October 31.

"Ready or not, spooky season is here," wrote Google Trends analyst Jenny Lee in the company's announcement of this year's list. With two weeks to go, the searches suggest America has picked its monster: a unicorn with a body count. You can explore the full interactive rankings, including regional costume maps, on Google's Frightgeist site, and Google's own announcement post has the highlights. For more on how the season is playing out online, see how October is taking over TikTok, take the horror quiz to find your match, or read why Halloween has become side hustle season.