Google Frightgeist 2026: Buddy the Unicorn Tops Costume Searches

Google put a killer unicorn at the top of Halloween this year. The company released its Frightgeist rankings on Wednesday, October 14, and Buddy the Unicorn, from the horror film Buddy, is the most searched costume trend in the United States, ahead of the squishy toy NeeDoh and Nikki from the film Obsession.

The list tracks costume searches that spiked in September compared with last year. It is a search ranking, not a sales count, and it reads like a map of what films, games and internet jokes filled people's feeds this year.

The top 10 costume searches

Buddy the Unicorn leads, and Google says searches for the Buddy unicorn costume passed searches for a plain kids unicorn costume for the first time this September. NeeDoh is second, with searches higher than ever in 2026. Nikki from Obsession is third. Agamemnon from The Odyssey is fourth, with his costume searched three times more than Penelope this year. Lily Love Braids from Poppy Playtime is fifth, then singer Oliver Tree, Verity from Minecraft, Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl, Disco Scooby-Doo and Hazel Hook from Descendants.

The rest of the top 25 mixes new hits with old names: Captain Clark from Backrooms, Dolly Parton, Thragg from Invincible, Kenny Rogers, Bowser Jr. and Michael Jackson in his Thriller era, whose costume searches are at a 10-year high this year.

What kids are searching

Google's kids list starts with Dolly Parton, then singer Ella Langley, Dumpling, Shakira, Ash Ketchum from Pokemon, Hannah Montana, Spider-Gwen, Michael Jackson, Pomni from The Amazing Digital Circus and Grogu.

Buddy also tops the horror list

Buddy shows up twice. It is also first on Google's trending horror movie list, ahead of Other Mommy, The Whisper Man, Passenger and Brute. Backrooms is on both lists as well. Halloween falls on Saturday, October 31 this year, which gives the costume search two more weekends to run.