Despite the fact it’s set in a world of pure horror, Pokemon isn’t known for being particularly scary. The modern anime is as silly and bombastic as you’d expect any kids’ show to be, while the games have become progressively more child-friendly as the years have gone by - take one look at Let’s Go’s Lavender Town next to the original version from Red & Blue and you’ll know what I mean.
This wasn’t always the case. Back when the Pokemon anime originally aired, one particular episode - or, perhaps more accurately, three consecutive episodes - became the de facto focal point of horror across the entire series. I am, of course, talking about Abra and the Psychic Showdown, Tower of Terror, and Haunter vs Kadabra.
The first of these episodes, Abra and the Psychic Showdown, introduces us to Saffron City’s gym leader, Sabrina. Ash, brazenly bullheaded as always, charges into the gym and demands a match against its head honcho. Sabrina accepts on the condition that should he lose, he and his mates need to play with her. Bit of a weird clause to stitch someone with, but whatever.
Anyway, Sabrina sends out Abra, who is, in fact, asleep. It unconsciously dodges Pikachu’s Thunder Shock, evolves into Kadabra, and beats up the little electric squirrel until Ash is forced to forfeit. Sabrina calls in her prize, although in a shock twist doesn’t just play football with our heroes. She shrinks them down and puts them in a toy house. Still normal-sized, Sabrina’s puppet self - there are two Sabrinas, by the way - towers over the building and tries to crush her doll-sized playmates with a giant ball. A man shows up and teleports them to safety. The entire experience makes for truly terrifying viewing.
The stranger tells Ash he needs to go catch a Ghost Pokemon, which directly segues into the trilogy’s second episode, Tower of Terror. This is the most often discussed episode of the three, but it’s also the least scary - as a matter of fact, it’s probably one of the funniest Pokemon episodes of all time. Ash, Misty, and Brock head to Lavender Town and get spectacularly pranked by Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar. After the ghosts have had their fun messing around, Haunter agrees to help Ash beat Sabrina. Together, they all head back to Saffron City and we progress to episode three, Haunter vs Kadabra - the scariest Pokemon episode ever made.
There’s an argument to be made about how Abra and the Psychic Showdown’s dollhouse scene is more unsettling than anything in Haunter vs Kadabra, but given that it’s the last episode in the sequence and has by far the highest stakes, I think the latter slightly wins out. Ash challenges Sabrina for the second time, but Haunter decides not to show up. Brock and Misty get shrunken down again, this time becoming actual dolls, and the mysterious man from before shows up to save Ash just before he becomes an action figure. He shows Ash a photo - the same one hanging on a wall in the dollhouse - and proves that he’s Sabrina’s dad. Ash, being the world’s most magnificent idiot, thinks this means he’s a photographer, because apparently all photographers carry every photo they’ve ever taken on their person at all times.
Ash goes back to the gym one last time in a last-ditch effort to save his friends from an eternity of bite-sized tea parties and behemoth death balls. Haunter is once again a no-show. Pikachu decides it’s time to be really brave and fights Kadabra again, although it isn’t until Haunter finally decides to intervene that hope is restored. Although it doesn’t want to fight - probably because it’s the best Ghost Pokemon ever designed - it starts playing with Sabrina and makes her laugh for the first time in ages. Sabrina’s Kadabra, who is telepathically linked to her, also starts laughing. Unable to continue the battle, Kadabra’s cackling leads to Ash winning by default. Ash now has a Marsh Badge. The end.
Except it’s not the end. Despite how uncharacteristically uncanny these episodes are, Sabrina ends up going back to normal and Haunter decides to stay with her. She transforms her mam back into a proper human and the two of them live happily ever after with her dad. Ash and the gang leave and head to Celadon City. The Pokemon anime continues and never becomes half as weird as this ever again.
And yet, all these years later, this trio of episodes remains firmly fixed in my brain as the scariest story Pokemon has ever told. Before its global unanimity and unparalleled commercial success, Pokemon was willing to get really, really weird. I might still get the shivers whenever I see puppet Sabrina attempting to kill the series’ main characters, but that’s arguably what makes it so worth celebrating today of all days.
Happy Halloween, folks - just try your best not to end up being magicked into a toy belonging to someone who wants to play bowling with you, except you and your mates are the pins.