The dawn of "spooky season" and the arrival of Halloween brings with it a renewed emphasis on the haunting, terrifying world of horror. Monsters, goblins, ghouls, and scary movie slashers dominate conversations, pop culture, and social media.

Professional wrestling is no different.

Throughout WWE history, the company has produced several takes on the dark, twisted world of horror, to varying degrees of success. Still, there have been several performers who have introduced their unique takes on the horror genre to wrestling fans, with a handful of notable cases forever etched in their imaginations.

In celebration of the macabre, these are the 13 scariest Superstars in WWE, from the Attitude Era and across all generations.

13. Alexa Bliss

Before her encounters with Bray Wyatt, the only thing terrifying about Alexa Bliss was her attitude.

Afterward, she became one of WWE's darkest and most unpredictable entities.

Under the trance of Wyatt's haunting alter-ego, The Fiend, she made life a living hell for anyone caught in his ghoulish web, notably Randy Orton.

Her partnership with The Fiend was relatively short-lived. After the visceral image of black ooze pouring from her forehead distracted him and cost him a match against The Viper at WrestleMania 37, she went her own way.

Bliss adopted a doll named Lily, who spoke to her and influenced her choice of opponents and the Superstars she targeted weekly.

The multi-time women's champion would flirt with the darkside at multiple points in the weeks and months that followed before seemingly having that element of her character dropped. The return of Wyatt in 2022 coincided with momentary trances in which Bliss would be haunted by imagery from her time as his sidekick.

The former WWE champion's unfortunate departure from television meant we would never see exactly what chapter two of Bliss' partnership with The Eater of Worlds would have looked like.

Still, Bliss completely invested in the darker side of her on-screen persona and the result was a gimmick that worked better than it had any right to and stood out, even as she was surrounded by former champions and top Superstars like Wyatt and Orton.

12. Aleister Black

The story of Aleister Black in WWE is unfinished in that it was brought to a sudden and unsatisfactory halt by an untimely release in April 2021.

Still, the former NXT champion captivated fans with the air of mystery that surrounded him through his run with the developmental brand and onto the main roster.

Accompanied by an eerie entrance that saw him rise from the abyss as if he was rising from a casket, he stalked toward the ring, often in the head of his opponent well before the bell ever rang.

As fans of All Elite Wrestling can attest two, there was plenty of untapped potential in the Black character to induce chills and terrify fans for the next decade but WWE management's inability at the time to understand the character led to its early demise.

Despite his premature exit from the company, which cut the legs out from underneath an evolving character, Black left a lasting impression that for fans of him and his work during his time there, will hopefully not be the last one.

Here's hoping Black reintroduces the company to his dark artistry before he calls it a career.

11. Kevin Thorn and Ariel

Kevin Thorn and Ariel, like Bliss and Black, are a case of what could have been more than what we actually got.

The product of WWE's attempt to introduce sci-fi elements to the relaunched ECW brand upon its arrival on the SyFy network, Kevin Thorn and Ariel were introduced as enigmatic vampires early in the brand's run.

Focal points of that first year of the new ECW, Thorn and Ariel would cut cryptic and haunting promos while targeting some of the brand's iconic originals, such as Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, and Sabu.

Instead of running with the act and seeing how much they could realistically get out of Thorn and Ariel two years before the huge vampire boom that arrived alongside the pop culture phenomenon that was the Twilight book and film series, the act became increasingly watered down.

Eventually, Thorn and Ariel joined the New Breed in its battles with the ECW Originals before fading into obscurity.

The duo had a great look and presentation. Whether fans would ever have truly bought into that particular gimmick in 2006-07 or not is a question that was never explored as WWE Creative lost interest and cut its legs off before it could ever grow and evolve into something of substance.

10. The Brood

The Brood answered the question, "What if The Lost Boys were wrestlers?"

Gangrel, Edge, and Christian rose through a pit of fire in arenas across the world as The Brood, an enigmatic trio consisting of one vampire and a "sibling" tag team that first found success with The Ministry of Darkness before breaking free and battling the Undertaker-led faction.

Not only did they possess an undeniable aura, and one of the greatest entrances in WWE history, but they were cool.

The unknown was intriguing, the way they bopped to the underrated and iconic Jim Johnston theme, and how they carried themselves made them fan favorites of an audience that naturally gravitated to the strange and unusual during the Attitude Era.

Edge and Christian became legitimate breakout stars, and The Brood disintegrated, but not before leaving a legacy as one of the most haunting and unforgettable acts in WWE history.

The only disappointment is that we never got a proper reunion, even late in Edge's Hall of Fame career, when he started using fire as an homage to his early beginnings.

9. The Boogeyman

The Boogeyman was a gimmick that had no right working as well as it did in 2006. It was an over-the-top character that would have played great to the kids in the late 1980s but midway through the new Millennium's first decade, felt cliched and worn out.

It is a testament to Marty Wright, the man behind the facepaint and worm-eating that it succeeded to the level it did.

Entering arenas engulfed in red and smoke, his face painted red and black and foam spewing from his mouth, he convulsed and shook as he made his way to the ring, terrifying his opponents before the bell ever rang.

Once it did, the outcome was rarely in doubt as the mesmerizing monster rolled to victory.

Even when he was not in action, his rivals were never safe. The pounding of the piano keys warned of his impending arrival, the arena's sudden darkness essentially promised it, and from under the ring he would come.

What defined the character most, though, were the live earthworms he would appear to eat en route to beating his opponent before sharing his hearty meal with them. It was disgusting, revolting, but strangely captivating.

Fans could not take their eyes off the spectacle that was WWE's latest monstrosity.

Fans ate it up like Boogeyman chowed down on worms and the gimmick had a much longer shelf life than anyone could have ever imagined. To this day, it is not out of the ordinary for him to pop up as the company celebrates spooky season or for him to appear in character on a WWE Network production.

One of those rare characters that remains emblazoned in the minds of fans, Wright's commitment to investing himself into a monster straight out of an unabashedly 1980s horror flick made him the endearing character that he is today.

8. Jake "The Snake" Roberts

The cold, emotionless stare into the camera.

The unnerving demeanor. The quietness with which he spoke to fans and opponents alike.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts terrified audiences even without his boa constrictor, Damian, during his run as a top WWE Superstar in the 1980s and early '90s.

A captivating performer, he became a fan favorite because of his eerily calm demeanor compared to the rest of the loud, over-the-top babyfaces on the roster. With or without the audience's adoration, there was no denying that Roberts was as dangerous a competitor as there was.

His devastating DDT claimed many a victim and his relatively quiet, philosophical promos served as a warning of impending doom for anyone who made an enemy of him. How he connected with audiences through the raising of an eyebrow or a minor inflection of his voice painted the picture of a cold and calculating predator.

Even as a fan favorite, he was terrifying because no one truly knew exactly what they were getting from the second-generation competitor at any time.

Throw in his trusty python or, after a heel turn in the early 1990s, his cobra and you have a total package that created nightmares for fans worldwide.

While some characters and gimmicks from the golden era of WWE fail to carry the same weight they did at their peak, Roberts holds up. He is still as unsettling as he was then; a man who spoke softly but whose words carried considerable weight with audiences.

And whose trademark snake sent even the biggest, strongest men scurrying.

7. Papa Shango

In hindsight, Papa Shango is considered one of the worst gimmicks in WWE history, thanks to his over-the-top nature. He was born in an era when Vince McMahon had run out of emotional stories so he invested in creating gimmicks from every corner of the world. including a voodoo doctor from New Orleans.

Charles Wright, later known as the significantly more successful Godfather character, portrayed the face-painted menace in the early 1990s and wasted little time terrifying the company's younger audience with his spells and dark magic.

Carrying voodoo dolls, shaking his stick of sage, and rolling his eyes in his head, he cursed opponents, including one poor soul whose feet suddenly engulfed in flame before one match.

Then there was the time he cursed The Ultimate Warrior, causing the former WWE champion to violently vomit what could best be described as the company's answer to the infamous pea soup from The Exorcist.

Now, it may seem like an unintentionally funny gimmick that would have been played for laughs today but at the time, it was unlike anything the company had ever produced. The unpredictability of Shango's curses, and what they would do to the men on their receiving end, frightened the WWE Universe.

The emergence of a cooler, darker, more enigmatic and historically significant Superstar around that same time ultimately proved his undoing, but there is no denying Shango's place in WWE history as one of the earliest horror-themed personas.

6. Doink the Clown

Doink the Clown's original incarnation is one of the greatest characters in WWE history.

With Matt Bourne under the red, white, and blue facepaint, the clown arrived on the scene in 1992 and wasted little time showing his true colors. He would play tricks on young fans, suckering them into believing he meant well before rudely pulling the rug out from underneath them.

He would do the same to their heroes, to no retribution, until he kicked off his most famous feud with Crush.

It was then that the full depravity of the clown would take center stage as Doink feigned an arm injury, only to pull a fake arm from inside a sling and brutally assault his rival with it. The program would lead to a WrestleMania 9 showdown with the Kona, Hawaii native that ended with the emergence of a second face-painted menace emerging from under the ring to assist the evil jester to victory.

More than anything he accomplished in the ring, it was what Bourne did with the character himself that landed Doink in such a prominent spot on this list.

He would explode through the curtain with the energy of a fun-loving clown, only to stop and stare into the camera with evil intent, as if to tell the audience that the entire thing was a charade. There was, as Dr. Loomis described Michael Myers in the classic Halloween film series, "pure evil" behind the eyes of the man in the paint.

Doink was not there to have a good time, tie animal balloons for fans, or slip on a banana peel. He was there to cause harm, pain, and punishment. For awhile, he did, until WWE officials inexplicably turned him babyface.

That creative decision essentially killed what Bourne had worked so hard to create: a nightmarish character that still holds up today amid a rise in popular clown antagonists in the horror genre.

He did not have Pennywise's sinister magic or Art the Clown's relentless brutality. Still, Doink was discomforting, and dangerous, and left an endearing legacy for fans who fondly remember Bourne's masterpiece.

5. Mankind

From the depths of the boiler room came Mankind.

In the spring of 1996, Mick Foley made his WWE debut as a deranged masked man with rats for pets, promising to unleash his brand of violence on the world. He did, wasting little time in establishing himself as a maleficent force on pro wrestling's most prominent company by targeting The Undertaker.

Armed with a devastating Mandible Claw finisher, he was unpredictable in his approach. He would come from out of nowhere to attack The Phenom and terrify audiences by being the first Superstar in a long time who could get the best of the Deadman.

With squealing, screaming promos about his dark upbringing and a penchant for sitting and shaking in the corner of the ring, Mankind was the latest evolution in the evil, maniacal villain. That Foley cared enough about the character to find new ways to make him unsettling, and to evolve him beyond the bare bones of McMahon's creative direction, made him the successful persona that he ultimately became.

While most remember Manking as the lovable, shirt-and-tie-wearing babyface of the Attitude Era, that original incarnation of the character was a truly horrific, nerve-wracking bad guy with a penchant for violence and creating uneasiness for fans that allowed him to quickly rise up the ranks in WWE.

His unforgettable rivalry with The Undertaker, during which he fearlessly countered The Phenom's mind games with his own, captivated audiences and ensured the journeyman wrestler finally achieved the stardom reflective of his enormous personality.

4. The Wyatt Sicks

The Wyatt Sicks are still very early in their WWE run but that has not stopped the group of outcasts from becoming one of the most haunting acts in company history.

Born in the mind of Bray Wyatt, the group is an homage to the late, great former WWE champion, led by his real-life brother, Bo Dallas, as Uncle Howdy.

Erick Rowan (Ramblin Rabbit), Nikki Cross (Abby the Witch), Dexter Lumis (Mercy the Buzzard), and Joe Gacy (Huskus the Pig Boy) each represent a member of Wyatt's Firefly Funhouse come to life.

Together, they unleashed terror on WWE, beginning with a June 17 debut that remains one of the greatest segments in Raw history and one of the most horrific moments in the company's long history.

It was right out of a horror movie.

Here was this masked band of enigmatic Superstars, wreaking havoc around the backstage area and leaving everyone from fellow competitors to security to crew members unconscious and bloodied before Howdy stepped out of the shadows and into the light, the new face of fear in WWE.

The videos that aired in the weeks that followed conveyed an internal struggle for Dallas as he sat across from his Howdy alter-ego and discussed the trauma of his brother's death and how that turned him into who he is today.

We saw the same from Rowan and other, shorter videos describing the motivations of Lumis, Cross, and Gacy. They had one thing in common: all had been left behind by what they considered to be family.

While it is still entirely too early to determine what the future holds for The Wyatt Sicks, that first impression, followed by their appearances since, has instantly catapulted them into the upper-half of this countdown.

Unfortunately for them, there are three iconic characters ahead of them that will make it damn near impossible to advance any further than the No. 4 spot.

3. Kane

After months of promises and threats from Paul Bearer throughout the summer of 1997, The Undertaker's long-lost brother, Kane, stepped through the curtain and entered Hell in a Cell at In Your House: Badd Blood and confronted his brother face-to-face.

"That's gotta be Kane!" Vince McMahon screamed into the headset as the Big Red Monster returned for revenge on the brother who left him to burn, then abandoned him to the basement and Bearer's care.

On that October night, the WWE Universe was introduced to a monstrous entity that would provide pain and torment for Superstars for the next two decades and partake in some of the most evil and destructive moments in company history.

From lighting stagehands on fire to locking his sibling in a casket and setting it ablaze, Kane terrified fans young and old, proving there were no depths of depravity that he would not sink to create havoc.

Later in his career, after countless championships and a babyface run or two, he underwent a major change when he lost his mask in a main event vs. Triple H. The one thing that shrouded Kane from the rest of the world, that allowed him to find sanctuary, was gone. The result was the most unhinged, deranged, and violent monster WWE had ever seen.

He brutalized everyone from former tag team partner Rob Van Dam to Jim Ross, setting the Hall of Fame commentator on fire. He delivered a Tombstone piledriver to Linda McMahon on the stage, assaulted general manager Eric Bischoff and, in one unforgettable act of depravity, electrocuted Shane McMahon's nether regions with a car battery.

Utilizing fire as his primary weapon, The Big Red Monster terrorized WWE for over 20 years, always reinventing himself when necessary before reverting to the Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers-inspired villain he first arrived as.

The only thing more terrifying than what he accomplished on his own was the pain and suffering inflicted when teamed up with Undertaker in the handful of runs they went on as The Brothers of Destruction.

More on the Phenom in a bit.

Kane arrived as a monster, a persona specifically designed to combat The Undertaker and add to his lore. It worked and the character, originally intended to be short-lived, became one of the most iconic in company history, thanks to a lengthy and epic backstory and a performer in Glenn Jacobs who was unafraid to pull off the creative team's vision.

2. Bray Wyatt/The Wyatt Family

Bray Wyatt created a masterpiece of horror in his decade-plus with WWE, first as the cultish leader of The Wyatt Family, then as the foreboding face of the Firefly Funhouse and the masked monster The Fiend.

With Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in the Wyatt Family, he carefully crafted a prophetic character who promised to deliver his followers from their pasts and bring them a better life. It was a persona inspired by Robert DeNiro's Max Cady in Cape Fear and WWE's own Waylon Mercy, but enhanced with Wyatt's creativity.

The dangerous trio targeted Daniel Bryan, The Shield, John Cena, Kane, and The Undertaker, wasting no opportunity to spread their word against the best WWE had to offer.

WWE's creative impatience was never going to allow Wyatt to see his vision through, though, and by 2018, frustration had set in. The second-generation star knew he needed to reinvent himself or wallow in mediocrity, disappear into the void, and eventually land on the unemployment line.

He did just that, introducing the WWE Universe to The Firefly Funhouse, a Mr. Rogers-inspired children's show featuring puppets created from his imagination and based on different elements of himself.

It was his masterpiece, a layered, deeper dive into Wyatt's psyche that coincided with the emergence of his darkest alter-ego, the aforementioned Fiend.

Under the Jason Baker-designed mask, Wyatt legitimately scared some fans while inspiring awe in others as he entered arenas, the epitome of a nightmare come to life. While it hampered his in-ring production, the character captivated fans and was unlike anything they had ever seen.

It was The Undertaker dialed up to 11, with an iconic look and aura to boot.

It had crossover appeal within the horror community and fans of WWE waited to see when, where, and how The Fiend would pop up next. Unfortunately, his time with the company was short-lived as Wyatt was inexplicably released in 2021 amid creative frustrations with his boss.

Fast-forward to 2022 and Wyatt returned under a new regime headed by Triple H and began his most personal story to date, featuring the debut of Uncle Howdy.

Sadly, fans would never get to see that story come to life as Wyatt tragically passed away on August 24, 2023, at the age of 36.

He was a force of nature creatively, a master of horror and as he elegantly put it, "the color red in a world of black and white." The only thing scarier than the monsters he unleashed on WWE is what he still had to offer the company from a creative standpoint.

A mind unlike any other, with a knack for bringing characters from the abyss alive, Wyatt is sadly missed and someone whose legacy will live forever in his creations, including The Wyatt Sicks.

1. The Undertaker

The story of the dark and haunting in WWE does not begin anywhere else but with The Undertaker.

From the moment he stepped through the curtain as Ted DiBiase's mystery partner at the 1990 Survivor Series, an undead casket-maker out of the wild, wild west, he captured the attention of the WWE faithful and never let it go.

So much so that within a year, the dark entity had engulfed the company, earning the appreciation of an audience desperately seeking something newer and fresher than the vitamins, prayers, and workouts of Hulk Hogan.

He was the world champion by the conclusion of Survivor Series 1991 and within six months, he was one of the most popular stars on the roster.

Whether competing against mammoth competitors like Giant Gonzalez, King Kong Bundy, or Kamala, or thwarting the Million Dollar Corporation, he became one of the faces of the company as the dark and gothic leader of The Creatures of the Night.

By the mid-1990s, he had evolved into a darker, more dangerous, and revenge-driven competitor, especially upon the arrival of his greatest rivals, Mankind and Kane. Fueled by rage caused by his battles with them in iconic specialty matches such as Hell in a Cell and Buried Alive, he turned to the darkest side, becoming the leader of The Ministry of Darkness.

Leading a cavalcade of monsters such as Mideon and Viscera, he terrorized WWE and went as far as to kidnap the (at that time) innocent Stephanie McMahon in the name of "The Higher Power."

The less said about that, the better.

A performer who had aura before it became the latest social media buzzword, Undertaker dove into his character and presented himself in a way that commanded fans' attention. From the supernatural control of lightning to the dimming of the house lights and funeral march theme music, he embraced what was an otherwise absurd persona and created his own iconic character with more monster lore than Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers...combined.

Is a pop culture phenomenon and the man who introduced the concept of "spooky" to the industry. Without him, this list does not exist.

He is the perfect horror-themed competitor, the most terrifying Superstar in WWE history, and one of the most enduring characters ever drummed up in a pro wrestling setting. Many have attempted to replicate him, but none have succeeded in achieving the heights that he did.

Nor will they ever.