Spooky and scary villagers wait among Animal Crossing's cute and cuddly animal friends, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons players might find some of these creatures moving to their islands. Animal Crossing: New Horizons' scariest villagers range from the subtly unnerving to the truly bizarre.
While some Animal Crossing villagers are differentiated by little more than alternate color palettes, the full range of villager types allows for quite a bit of variety. There's almost 400 villagers players can recruit in New Horizons, each fitting into one of 28 different species types. Most villagers match their given species pretty closely, but Nintendo sometimes stretches the boundaries of the categories. Some of Animal Crossing's best villagers are based on non-animal objects, like the strawberry shortcake-inspired rhino, Merengue,
Basing a villager on something other than an animal can create an adorable or interesting character, but it's also what makes several of Animal Crossing: New Horizons' spookiest villagers so disturbing. Here are the game's creepiest animal characters.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Most Terrifying Villagers
The following villagers are likely to unnerve or gross out any players who come across them, as each has something distinctly "off" about their appearance. But even Animal Crossing's worst villagers are beloved by some fans, and the same is likely true for the scary ones, especially since their spookiness makes them extra unique.
Coco
Speaking of unique, there's no New Horizons villager like Coco. She's based on Animal Crossing's gyroids, clay-like furniture items and NPCs inspired by ancient Japanese haniwa figures. Coco is technically a rabbit, but only in name, as she appears to be a sentient, hollow construct. She is the only villager whose face doesn't change when using Expressions, which means she constantly keeps that cold, blank stare on her face.
Pietro
It's hard to say if Pietro is actually creepy or just burdened with society's fear of clowns like IT's Pennywise, but many players seem disappointed when he moves in. His beady black eyes don't do him any favors, giving his expression a similar blankness to Coco.
Rodeo
Like Pietro, Rodeo's tiny eyes give him his creepiness, their red color making him look possessed or otherwise evil. In previous games, this spookiness was offset by his striped pink shirt, but his default Animal Crossing: New Horizons clothing is a graduation gown. When paired with his evil eyes, the gown looks more like a sinister sorcerer's robe, giving the impression he's committing some kind of dark magical deeds when no one is around.
Stitches
Like Pokémon's possessed doll, Banette, Stitches appears to be an old, sentient child's toy. A living stuffed animal isn't necessarily spooky, but its x-shaped eyes make it look more dead than alive - perhaps the ghost of a real bear inhabiting a stuffed one, or the spirit of the child who once owned it. Plus, Stitches' name implies being broken, which only adds to the creepiness.
Hopkins
Hopkins doesn't initially seem disturbing at all, appearing to be a normal, friendly rabbit. But when he turns around, players can see a plastic plug on the back of his head (seen in the tweet below from user Jonathan H. Gray), similar to the ones found on pool floats.
While the fact he's a living blow-up rabbit is weird on its own, it's the plug's prominence that makes Hopkins so unnerving. It's invitingly gross, like a zit waiting to be popped, but Hopkins' apparent reliance on the seal to maintain his shape makes it more like the "vulture-eye" in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart..." Disturbing, indeed.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons released on March 20, 2020, for the Nintendo Switch.