Creepy Cute

Extra legs just means more hugs!

"Awww, aren't you a cute little Voldemort impersonator. Aww, and look at that, he belched. These things are adorable."

— Chuggaaconroy on White Pikmin

Ugly Cute is what happens when a creature that isn't exactly "attractive" somehow manages to be adorable. Normally, these little guys still have some kind of stereotypical "cute" traits, like oversized eyes or a fat little body.

And then, there's these guys. They're scary, and meant to be... and they still, somehow, manage to be adorable. These little guys may sport Cute Little Fangs, be Mooks for the resident Big Bad, or hail from a Halloween Town-flavored setting.

But, creepy cute characters don't have to look creepy or cute in order to be creepy cute, they can also have creepy personalities and habits that add to the creepy cuteness.

Compare and contrast Ugly Cute and Killer Rabbit. May overlap with either Adorable Evil Minions, Adorable Abomination or Creepy Good. See also Gonk.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Black Butler:
  • Ciel is your typical Creepy Child yet many find him to be cute.
  • Undertaker is one of the creepiest characters in the series. He's also one of the most endearing, and he has many fangirls who find him adorable.
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School has Seiko Kimura. A tall woman with Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises, who speaks in Creepy Monotone and wears a mask over her mouth. Nonetheless, she is loved by the fans, who deem her design adorable and especially her younger versions are absolutely adorable.
• Dororo (2019): Hyakkimaru is a scarily capable demon fighter sliding towards becoming He Who Fights Monsters or a just a straight forward Blood Knight. He snuggled into the hands of his father while still covered in demon blood and even smiled after being called terrifying. That's mostly because outside of battle, he is essentially a toddler in teenager's body with matching social and language skills so fans tend to coo over his heavy-handed displays of affection and overall adorableness in face of things people usually take for granted.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Chiaotzu in his early appearances is a Creepy Child with an unblinking gaze and a blank expression that rarely changes, and one of the top students of the Crane School, a martial arts school that specializes in assassination techniques. In his tournament match with Krillin, he motionlessly charges towards Krillin while hovering in a borderline Jump Scare and later nearly kills him by destroying his internal organs with telekinesis. He also acts like a preschool bully using childish insults, gets flustered comically easily with directions and basic math, and has an always endearing relationship with his best friend and partner, Tien Shinhan. His creepiness is quickly played down and out of existence after his and Tien's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Zen-Oh of Dragon Ball Super is the ultimate Top God of the multiverse, holding the power to erase anything and anyone from existence, including existence itself, with only a gesture. He usually speaks in a Creepy Monotone when not excited, has blatant apathy for most forms of life whether mortal or otherwise (the only beings he won't erase are the Angels), and makes even the Gods of Destruction cower in abject terror at his presence. He also looks and acts like a little kid, enjoys playing games like tag and hide-and-seek, and has an adorable friendly relationship with Goku, the only being in existence who treats him as an equal.
• Neferpitou from Hunter × Hunter. Adorably catlike, yet we see them play with the dead heads of their victims and turn dead people into puppets. Also the fact that they're well... evil. Their design itself could even count as cute in a scary way.
• Black Lagoon: Frederica Sawyer gets hired to brutally execute people with her chainsaw, which she does without remorse. She dresses like a surgeon at work and covers her face with a mask and goggles. She has empty eyes and got her throat slit, resulting in a huge scar. She can't speak anymore and uses a voice box that emits a robotic, monotone voice. There are scars on her wrists, suggesting she practices self-harm. However, she is a goth girl and blushes when she becomes the center of attention. She drops into the fetal position if she loses her voice box, ignoring everyone and everything around her, which can invoke pity in viewers.
• Kukuru from Joshiraku is this during her more sane moments.
• What fangirls think of Dr. Stein from Soul Eater. It's also the main reason his younger self is a One-Scene Wonder.
  • To say nothing of Crona.
  • And Medusa when in possession of Rachel.
• Either Russia or Belarus from Hetalia: Axis Powers, depending on the fans you're talking to.
• In Marginal #4, adorable Idol Singer twins L and R pretend to be possessed by demons on a hidden camera show. This is the result.
• Naruto:
  • Shino Aburame; like all the Aburame, his body is a hive for mutualistic beetles, but he's one of the good guys and sulks when people forget him.
  • Orochimaru and Nagato when they were younger also count, considering both would grow to be well... less than friendly characters the two qualified here tragically.
• Juvia Lockser from Fairy Tail is this a lot during the series. The creepy part of her is usually when she's calm or insulted by the cast, but whenever she's around Gray her adorable side comes out in the form of infatuation which sadly gets ignored most of the time.
• The titular Franken Fran is an assembled corpse girl complete with a stitched together Glasgow Grin. Even after seeing what happens to most of her patients one can't help but feel endeared by her positive outlook and adorable personality.
• Most students of the Midnight Horror School qualify. Docky, Hikky, Watt, and Zobie all have black liquid dripping from their eyes, which may look creepy if you think about it.
• In Pokémon: The Series, some of Team Rocket's Pokémon can count as this. Of particular note is Jessie's Pumpkaboo/Gourgeist in Pokémon the Series: XY, a creepy jack-o-lantern ghost Pokémon that is somehow adorable under Jessie's command.
• Tomoko Kuroki from No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! is this out of awkwardness and shyness. Though she tries to be Creepy Awesome by proving she can handle people (which she fails a lot at, by the way). Her jealous and deranged inner self, comes off as more adorable than anything truly malevolent.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind has Pannacotta Fugo's Stand, Purple Haze. It's a violent, uncontrollable Stand with the ability to release a deadly flesh-eating virus, inflicting a quick and painful death to everyone around it and making its user into The Dreaded among bad guys. It's also obsessed with cleanliness, and sometimes tries to rub dirt off itself, making it oddly endearing despite being one of the most dangerous Stands in the entire manga.
• Envy's true form in Fullmetal Alchemist. They resemble an cross between a lamprey, a fetus, a caterpillar and a lizard with bulging eyes, roughly the size of a human hand. While they are without a doubt extremely evil and psychopathic, Envy somehow manages to be cute.

Arts

• Kent J. Starrett is known for this, as it's part of his Signature Style.

Comic Books

• Nightcrawler from X-Men, and his animated incarnations. He physically resembles a demon, but he has this fun-loving personality that is hard not to love.
• In Runaways, Old Lace is a Deinonychus who's fully capable of ripping someone to shreds, but her original depiction, with her big eyes and lanky body, makes her so endearing.
• Creature Feature:
  • Curtis and Erik. Despite being cannibalistic and the former is a werewolf and sometimes reanimate the dead, the two are fun-loving Perky Goths, and it's adorable.
  • Dani is also this when she's not in her Stalker with a Crush mode.
• Lenore Lynchfast, Ragamuffin, and pretty much the entire world in Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl.
• Max of Sam & Max: Freelance Police is a three-foot-tall, hyperkinetic rabbity thing with white fur, big ears and feet, cute little beady eyes on either side of his wide head, and a big mouth filled with sharp, shark-like teeth.
• The odd little Planimal creatures from Young Avengers, which flock around resident Reality Warper Billy Kaplan exclaiming "Demiurge!" Even the characters In-Universe find them adorable. One fan requested Marvel make a plushie, and another fan made their own.
• Venom has the Venom symbiote to be this as it is a sweet, kind, polite and nice alien being though it does have awful social skills and even when it is corrupted.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): San was already this in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and it continues as this story expands more on his character. Reviewers have variously responded, finding him creepy (particularly before his Heel Realization) and/or adorable. He's quite Adorkable, especially with Vivienne, but if you push his Berserk Button too far, then he'll show you that he used to be one of the Devil's heads.
• Danny Phantom Reversal has Anna, a mostly normal little girl. Mostly. She differs from normal kids in that she's a clairvoyant who can see supernatural things for what they are, and can even predict them to some degree.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan fictions that are meant to be horrifying or gory can fall squarely into this territory instead. It's just the effect that, say, a serial killer who happens to be an adorable pastel-colored little pony named Cookie Crumble can have.
• Badumsquish, when he's not making the weirdest damned NSFW stuff you ever saw, has turned out some very strange creations that fall squarely into this territory. It probably helps that he is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan artist whose style is almost identical to the show. So far he's made a bed bug, a stomach parasite, and a sentient hive-minded mass of naughty tentacles that have infested a pony costume named Cuddlhu all adorable. The latter is an intentional example, which comes with a story where "she" is basically The Woobie that only wants companionship.
• A kid Nui from Maim de Maim may not look creepy, however, she is this in terms of her behavior (the whole entire "violence is normal" and being sadistic thing) , until she skinned a girl alive that is.

Films — Animation

• Tim Burton's (and Henry Selick's, for that matter) stop-motion films would certainly count. Case in point: Sparky from Frankenweenie, a bull-terrier who's been stitched together and brought back to life via electricity after getting killed by a car.
• Héctor Rivera and pretty much almost all of the skeletons from Coco.
• Mavis from Hotel Transylvania. She's 118, can turn into a bat (albeit a very adorable one), crawl on walls, can't go out during the day, and has no reflection, but otherwise, young Mavis appears to be a normal, sweet teenage girl.
  • The werewolf pups are pretty cute too, when they aren't tearing around like razor-toothed puppies on meth.
• Lumalee from The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a cute little star... who happens to be very focused on nihilistic topics and is a Death Seeker due to being in Bowser's prison for a long time.

Films — Live-Action

• In Critters, the title critters are little balls of fur with big eyes... and teeth that would make a shark feel insecure.
• Teefs and Floor from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 both look like horrifying experiments gone wrong, with Teefs being a walrus with cybernetic human eyes and wheels and Floor being an unholy mix between a rabbit and a robot spider. However, their childlike personalities and their Family of Choice dynamic with each other alongside Lylla and Rocket still make them endearing making Teefs and Floor's deaths all the more tragic, especially after the High Evolutionary kills Lylla.
• Men in Black: "Congratulations, Reg, it's a ... squid."
• Shin Godzilla has the larval Godzillas, the first on-screen form being an armless two-legged pollywog resembling a frilled shark (affectionately dubbed "Kamata-kun" by the Japanese fandom) that scrapes itself along through the city streets and continuously bleeds through the gills in its neck.
• The puppets from Puppet Master: fit this thanks to their size, noises, behaviors, and shots from their point of view.
• Venom (2018): The Venom symbiote is violent, aggressive, likes eating people and has a scary sounding voice. However, unlike Riot, it does eventually end up caring about its host Eddie Brock, despite at first making it clear it was only using him to bring its kind to Earth. It also ends up caring about Anne as it says at the end of the movie it's going to bring both Eddie and Anne together. The Venom symbiote is also very childlike and has a genuinely cheerful nature as it tells Eddie that they should bite the heads off the people that went after them in the apartment they were at, coming off as a Heroic Comedic Sociopath. While bonded with Anne it saves Eddie from the people that were going to kill him, and after that it decides to kiss him as a way of transferring back to him (even though there were other ways to do so). This shows that Venom loves Eddie very much, which helps it come across as rather endearing despite its violent behavior and creepy appearance.

Literature

• Shouko from Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts. Her obsessive crush on Yuuji and her ways to come on to him is downright creepy, but you can't deny that she is pretty cute.
• Squiggles from Prophecy Approved Companion is an eternally hungry sharktopus that loves warm hugs and the blood of her enemies. She has flat, shark eyes that she can somehow make look like puppydog eyes.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Vera Miligan's familiar Milihand is her own disembodied hand (severed in a fight with the protagonists) with an eyeball in its palm that has a Deadly Gaze attack. It nonetheless manages to be quite endearing with its benign and even helpful behavior.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • The Fourth Doctor from Doctor Who was intended as this. Gothic Horror tropes? Nightmare Fetishist? Cheshire Cat Grin? Creepy Blue Eyes? All yes. Genius Sweet Tooth Manchild with Immortal Immaturity, cheeky little Character Tics, an unreserved love of gothic horror stuff and Innocent Blue Eyes? Also all yes. Tom Baker, when asked to describe his Doctor in one word, said "adorable". Steven Moffat pointed out that the Fourth Doctor is one of the most scary, difficult-to-handle Doctors of the lot. Terrance Dicks felt that he was the Doctor (out of the first five) most likely to turn towards evil. It isn't mutually exclusive. The Fourth Doctor's love of Jelly Babies is used to encapsulate this. They're tasty sweets enjoyed by children in Britain, but at the end of the day, he Eats Babies (pointed out by Leela in "The Face of Evil"). The Telos Novella Ghost Ship even contains a scene where he talks with a Nightmare Fetishist character about what Jelly Babies are actually made of — solidified with boiled bones, dyed blood red with crushed beetles...
  • Daleks. Horrifying space racists and the most evil creatures in the universe, but due to being rather short with stubby "arms", just anthropomorphic enough in movements and mannerisms to feel endearing, occasionally written as The Grotesque or even The Woobie and sometimes even a bit wobbly thanks to Special Effect Failure, they can be adorable.
    • Mascot Mook monsters as they are, The Merch often plays this up — cuddly toy Daleks, talking Dalek birthday cards ("CE-LE-BRAAATE!"), Dalek Sexy Whatever Outfits...
    • "The Space Museum" has a Dalek in it that Vicki finds cute (much to the disgust of her companions).
    • The Human Factor Daleks in "Evil of the Daleks" act like small children, chase each other around, play "trains" (with the Doctor supplying a train whistle sound on his recorder) and "Dizzy Doctor" (where they spin the Doctor around until he gets dizzy), and have much gentler voices with a lot more expression.
    • The tea-making "Ironside" in "Victory of the Daleks" is positively adorable.
    • The Big Finish audio drama Jubilee BRUTALLY deconstructs this tropes with regards to the Daleks by emphasising the "creepy" part and reminding us that, at the end of the day, they are actually Space Nazis, even Leaning on the Fourth Wall to criticise the listener, the franchise, and humanity as a whole for the commercialisation, minimisation, and sensationalisation of Fascism. The episode Dalek, loosely adapted from this audio, does this too, albeit to a much lesser degree, by emphasising how deadly even the cute parts can be (for instance, the infamous sink plunger attachment can crush a human skull).
  • The Emojibots from "Smile".
• Dog from Good Omens (2019). Looks like an innocent and adorable little pup, but he’s actually a hellhound disguised as one owned by Adam, the son of Satan.
• Gotham:
  • Young, pre-supervillainy Ed Nygma. On the one hand, eccentrically dorky and reasonably good-looking in a nerdy sort of way. On the other hand, even before his Sanity Slippage he's a Nightmare Fetishist with boundary issues.
  • Oswald Cobblepot. He's small (and his slight stature is often emphasized next to other characters), kind of awkward, quite affectionate towards his loved ones, and has a big teary smile coupled with wide green eyes that make him appear nearly childlike at times. He's also a psycho mob boss prone to screeching rage at the blink of an eye who has stabbed a man to death with a garden trowel before, and will happily murder people with a smile on his face.
    • Exaggerated when they form a Villainous Friendship. They genuinely care for each other and their relationship is full of Pet the Dog moments for both of them, but they also murder people as a bonding activity.
  • Ecco, the show's version of Harley Quinn. While she keeps Harley's trademark peppy personality and is a cute young woman, she's also a fanatical zealot for the show's version of the Joker and lacks Harley's more redeeming qualities.
  • Cameron Monaghan as the Valeska twins actually manages to make the Joker somewhat cute, perhaps due to his youth and Failed Attempt at Drama moments. Jerome in particular has the tendency to pull very boyishly endearing faces, and Jeremiah almost comes across as Adorkable at times. They're both still Ax-Crazy murderers.
  • The young Poison Ivy. When we meet her, she's just a bedraggled little girl, but she usually speaks in a Creepy Monotone and has the tendency to casually talk about death and disturbing things, even the deaths of her own parents. Selina even seems to think so in-universe; she's Ivy's Only Friend and is loyal to her, but still mildly creeped out by her.
    Selina: Let's go. Don't turn around!
    Bruce: Why? She's just a little girl.
    Selina: She's creepy!
• River Tam of Firefly: tiny, cute, barefoot, Delicate and Sickly, randomly blabs creepy stuff, cases in point:
  The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
  We won't die gasping for air. *beat* We'll freeze to death first.
• Parker from Leverage is a very pretty, quirky young woman who believes in Santa, and is also something of a Woobie thanks to her Dark and Troubled Past. She's also one of the more ruthless team members and has a penchant for saying disturbing things.
  Parker: Place the mask over your mouth and nose and breathe normally. In the event of a water landing your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. But, let's face it, if this thing goes down in the water, more than likely the impact will kill you. Please take a moment to locate the nearest emergency exits because if this plane's on fire you're gonna wanna get out quick. Jet fuel burns at over 1000 degrees. That's hot, folks!

Podcasts

• Pokémon World Tour: United: The Pokemon Charmander is normally a cute little bipedal lizard and one of the first game's Starter Pokemon. Rose's Charmander, Pepper, is unusual in that he was bequeathed to her by the ghost of a dead Pokemon Trainer. As a result, Pepper is also dead, as indicated by the fact that it lacks the flame on its tail which is indicative of the Pokemon line's life force, is part Ghost-type when Charmander are normally pure Fire, floats in the air and tends to just vanish and reappear instead of physically moving, is described as having empty, sunken eyes, and speaks its Pokémon Speak in a Creepy Monotone. When Pepper evolves into Charmeleon in episode 24, it still manages this even though the GM Alan describes the evolution as going from this to just plain creepy. Pepper affectionately holds Rose's hand and comforts Rose's Bulbasaur Sakura by booping her nose with his.
• The Skull Kingdom in the Cool Kids Table game Here We Gooooo!. Naturally it's covered in skulls and bones, but they're designed very cutely.
• Antigone Funn of Wooden Overcoats is largely considered to be a creepy weirdo by most of the town, due to her job as a mortician, the fact that she feels more comfortable around corpses than living people, her habit of dramatically appearing out of the shadows, her shut-in tendencies, and her complete inability to have a normal conversation with another human being. She'd probably be quite surprised to find out most of the fandom loves her and considers her to be quite adorable for exactly these qualities, many semi-jokingly dubbing her a "goth queen."

Roleplay

• The Doomy Adventures of Irken Doominess: has two psychopathic female Irkens named Gar and Melissa who are insanely creepy, yet quite adorable.

Toys

• Little Miss No Name◊ is an example where the "creepy" part was unintentional. This Hasbro doll was intended as an object of pity and compassion for little girls, as opposed to the vast majority of dolls which were mostly based around Wish-Fulfillment. However, the empty soul-staring eyes of the doll made most children more terrified of it than anything else. You will find quite a few adults, however, who do find Little Miss No Name cute.
• Furbies, particularly the original versions◊ from the 90's. Prior to their being given digital eyes and more-developed animation circuitry.
• The Lalaloopsy dolls wouldn't look too out of place in a horror story like Coraline with their button eyes and stitched smiles, yet their innocent behaviors and bright colors do give off a nice appeal to a lot of people who aren't too scared.
• For those who find Black Bead Eyes cute, Funko Pop! figures can fall under this. Even characters like Carrie and Voldemort tend to look rather endearing in Funko's chibi-esque art style. Voldemort◊, in particular, has an almost confused expression and a shrugging pose that comes off as quite charming.
• A lot of the plushies put out by Squishables fall under this banner. Their top-selling line is based around plague doctors, and they've also sold adorable plush versions of The Grim Reaper, Baphomet, Cthulhu, The Krampus, and many other traditionally spooky and creepy things.

Video Games

• Final Fantasy:
  • Tonberries. See an example of their behavior. They're tiny little critters, who don't attack first. Instead, they wait. And wait. And wait for you to attack and give it your best shot, creeping closer until they stab you with their knives. And yet, their small size (usually, though even the big ones are cute), big eyes, and reptilian features rather than being a scary point, is downright adorable.
  • The Save-Moogle on the world map of Final Fantasy IX: while he acts like a normal Moogle usually, if you call and dismiss him over and over again, he starts to get annoyed, then angry, and then (eventually) threateningly states "I'm sharpening my knife, kupo..."
• Boos of the Super Mario Bros. series. They're roundish little Bedsheet Ghosts with a mouthful of fangs and beady eyes. They also stick their tongues out like Bratty Half Pints, and let out a hilariously high-pitched cackle when they spot you. Not to mention how they adorably hide their face out of shyness when Mario faces them.
• The Witch from Left 4 Dead, who was intended as the scariest zombie of them all, but receives a lot of love and fanart from the base.
• Creepers from Minecraft. They look like screaming zombie cacti, but they're pretty much the game's mascot. You can even buy Creeper plushies that go "SSSSSSSSSSSS" when you squeeze them.
• The way how Numb Bodies of Silent Hill 3 sadly walk around while mourning makes them look downright adorable.
• Flandre Scarlet from Touhou Project, who is a cute girl with crystalline wings, and also a mentally unstable vampire and a Person of Mass Destruction who has a high chance of blowing you to smithereens without even trying.
• MapleStory: Zombie Mushrooms, Death Teddies, heck, half the undead creatures qualify as do the aliens. Particularly unsettling in the case of the Death Teddies; they're built in a factory that specializes in animated plush toys, and robots seem to be assigned to work on this project. At the lower levels, one can assume that such toys have been discarded due to their beat up appearance, and whatever animated them has warped the toys horribly turning them into undead monsters. Let this sink in for awhile, then look at how cute these things still are despite having giant ghosts on their back.
• In Mutant Night, players assume the role of Mutron-kun, a ghostly oni-like cyclops creature whose body is a humanoid white blob and with a single, gigantic blue eye as his sole facial feature. And he looks downright adorable.
• BlazBlue:
  • Taokaka (and the other Kaka, especially the kittens). Personality-wise, she's your typical Genki Girl Cat Girl; she just happens to wear a hood with only glowing eyes and More Teeth than the Osmond Family visible.
  • Carl Clover might also count as an In-Universe example, since he's an adorable preteen boy (in the flashbacks, Makoto had a habit of hugging him) with a great deal of Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour.
• Some of the notable creatures you can encounter in Yume Nikki fit. Uboa, for example, is an event that can only be triggered by flicking the lights on and off in a specific room with an NPC. While jarring, it's still somewhat cute in its own way, with its big grin and Eyes Always Shut. There's also Monoko, a girl you can encounter in a tunnel. She looks like your average pigtailed schoolgirl. Then you use the stoplight effect...
• The Judge from OFF counts, in many fans' eyes. He's a white cat who can talk (quite articulately, in fact), his verbal tic is a soft purring noise, and he's easily distracted by cat food. But then you see his giant fangs, arched in a smile...
• Ghost-types from Pokémon are supposed to be scary or at least unsettling in-universe, but a lot of the unevolved forms appear to be Ridiculously Cute Critters. Such examples include Misdreavus, Shuppet, Duskull, Drifloon, Litwick, Phantump, Pumpkaboo, Sinistea, and Hisuian Zorua.
  • Hydreigon is a three-headed dragon Pokémon that's specifically noted by the Pokedex as being scary looking, which is rather hard to deny, with it sporting two prominent pairs of fangs, huge black and red eyes on its main head, and spiky-looking frills on each head. However, it still manages to be strangely adorable, particularly when it smiles and does happy dances.
  • Mimikyu is some sort of horrifying abomination that is so awful to look upon that researchers pass out from the shock at best, die at worst, with a true form of which only glimpses are shown (of long, shadowy arms and a horrific cackling voice). This is because it spends its whole life wearing an amateurish Pikachu costume in the hope that people will love it.
  • The trainer class Hex Maniac (Occult Maniac in the original Japan versions) became this in her Generation VI redesign.
  • Pokémon X and Y also has Espurr, a fluffy Scottish Fold kitten with a creepy blank expression. This is because it has powers that could destroy the world and it's terrified of accidentally using them.
  • Porygon-Z the final evolution of Porygon is basically if a Computer Virus took on a bird shape with it's bizarre Floating Limbs, yellow dead looking eyes and fidgety movements. On the other hand it still looks just as cute as it's previous forms and it's spasms end up making it cuter in modes introduced in later games such as Pokémon Amie/Refresh.
  • Greavard from Scarlet and Violet looks like a sheepdog with a candle on its head that instantly befriends anyone who approaches it. What makes it so creepy, you ask? It also (involuntarily) drains them of their life energy the longer they play with it. Its evolution, Houndstone, is even creepier since it has a tombstone where Greavard's candle would be and no skin under its fur.
• The animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy's. Once you get desensitised enough to their Jump Scare tactics, and find the in-game hints about what they actually are, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for them.
  • The most extreme example is probably the 'Freddles' from Five Nights at Freddy's 4, which are tiny, creepy wobbling plush toys with many sharp teeth and Glowing Eyes of Doom... But they're so adorable.
  • Another example from the same game would be Plushtrap who is basically a baby version of Springtrap.
• Bebedora from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. She's a child-like monster whose face is never revealed beneath her hat, and who calls on the powers of darkness to possess and control enemies—-but who also has a child's curiousity and affinity for play. Her weapons are stuffed animals with which she slaps the enemy.
• Pretty much all the ghosts from Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon are this. The Giant Spider that serves as the first Boss is kind of Creepy Cute too once it is freed from Demonic Possession.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Poes from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. They're ghosts who are pretty malevolent, but they have an adorable, high-pitched cackle, much like the Boos. Also like Boos, their laugh is a sped up version of the final boss's laugh.
  • The Great Fairy Queen from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a giggling Creepy Child with empty eyes, holding an equally Creepy Doll as a disjointed, uncanny variation of the Great Fairy theme plays in the background. That being said, she's nothing but friendly and helpful to Link, and even admits having a crush on him.
  • The infamous Blizzeta boss battle from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess so sweet, so cute...so freaky.
• Many creatures and even some of the playable characters of Don't Starve fall under this, but special mention goes to omnipresent spiders which are frightening and surprisingly hostile to whoever happens to pass close to their dens at dusk, but are at the same time terribly cute, especially performing their "cower" animation◊ in fear of being struck back... and speaking of spiders, the playable character that best exemplifies the "Creepy Cute" part of them must be Webber: at first glance he looks like a terrifying humanoid spider, with legs coming out of his head and a mouth full of fangs... but then when he speaks you realize he's a young boy trapped inside a spider in a weird symbiotic relationship. He shows a lot of curiosity and uses childish terms for many things.
• In TRI: Of Friendship and Madness, you'll almost never run into another living creature within the Odd Gods' World - well, until you get to the Prisons chapter. Lurking inside breakable pots in a single room are little four-legged 'Eye Bug' creatures which might be startling to some - they resemble spiders, and as their name suggests, have one big eye in the center of their head. They're actually harmless, and you'll have to make use of them to solve a puzzle.
• Several monsters in Undertale qualify, but Muffet stands out. Aww, what a cute spider girl! Who wants to eat you!
• This critter◊ from Myst V: End of Ages qualifies, mostly because of the cute honking sounds it makes and its silly way of walking.
• The antagonists of One Night at Flumpty's tend to be rather silly and adorable when roaming around the building, and not drastically changing their face when attacking you. Special mention goes to Flumpty, who even does a mocking "peekaboo" before draining your exposure meter in the sequel.
• The Little Sisters from BioShock are five year old little girls in cute dresses who just want to run around and play. They also have glowing eyes, have not had a bath in quite a while, and drink blood from corpses. The Little Sisters and their protectors (the Big Daddies, specifically the Bouncer type) are the Series Mascot.
• Most players of Tattletail will agree that the main Tattletail is adorable despite being somewhat creepy. Notably, Sr. Pelo suffered from Cuteness Proximity upon seeing him for the first time!
• Some Half-Life enemies tend to be seen as cute by fans when they are not trying to reduce you to a bloody pulp. Some of the most notable examples are the Houndeyes and the Bullsquids.
  • The Vortigaunts are often considered this, as well as Ugly Cute.
• Kistrel in Neverwinter Nights 2. You encounter him a cave and he's alone, shy and hungry. If you feed him with some insect you found earlier, he'll warm up to you and even knit you a nice magical cape. That's the cute part. The creepy part? He's a Giant Spider!
• M4 SOPMOD II from Girls' Frontline combines this trope with Cute and Psycho. On one hand, she's rather bloodthirsty, collects parts from Sangvis Ferri gynoids and wears an SF arm, along with quite a bit of black clothing. On the other hand, she's very affectionate towards the Commander, acts as The Heart for Anti-Rain and otherwise looks like a pretty girl with light pink hair and pinkish-red eyes. She gets a lot of fanart and is often nicknamed "Soppo".
• The NPCs in Hollow Knight are skull-headed, empty-eyed, bug-like creatures, and the enemies are zombie infectees on top of that...but they're also drawn with big round eyes, have adorable mannerisms, or make funny noises when interacted with, and the combination of the cartoony art style and the way the infection works means that the zombies don't have the gore you might find in other games. Certain late game areas drop the cute.
• Coco Bandicoot in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, when the N-V causes her to mutate further with longer fangs, claws and talons, yet doesn't affect her perky attitude much. As such, it's little wonder why this version of her was later brought back as a skin for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.
• The patient from Cursetorn can be qualified as this, according to fan reactions.
• The Glyphids in Deep Rock Galactic are alien bugs with no eyes and having more teeth than one should have. Despite their scary appearance, many fans see them as kind of cute. The Beast Master perk lets players tame a Glyphid (Grunt, Guard, and Slasher) so it can fight on the player's side. You can even pet your tamed Glyphid and the player characters will treat it as their best friend while admitting that they're kinda cute too.
• Jurassic World Evolution 2:
  • Utahraptor, the largest dromaedosaurid ever discovered, happens to have one of the cutest social animations in game - one Utahraptor attempts to nuzzle into another, only for the second raptor to casually sidestep and walk off, causing the first one to comically flop over onto the ground. The fact that this dinosaur has feathers, makes Utahraptor not come off as a dangerous creature.
  • Tarbosaurus, the apex predator of Late Cretaceous Gobi Desert... who while laying on the ground, occasionally rolls like a dog.

Visual Novels

• From Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, we have Viola Cadaverini, a young woman who is not only cute and pretty, but also very creepy.
  • The Blue Badger, anyone? Seems to be more of a Nightmare Fuel in-universe.
  • The De Famme twins in Spirit of Justice, especially the "evil" one.
• Maria, a 9 year old girl who speaks and acts like she's 5, has this feel in Umineko: When They Cry − moreso in the sound novel where she has sleepy eyes… her cute part is intermittent though.
• The developer of the visual novel Love at First Sight has actually chosen the name Creepy Cute. In fact the love interest from this game can be also considered that, being a Cyclops... but this is mostly a gimmick because it's a very standard romance. The art style of the whole game is also creepy but cute according to several gamers.
• All of the love interests in Starstruck Love will fall under this at some point, particularly in the Extreme Love End.

Web Animation

• Hazbin Hotel: The unfailingly polite Alastor, a cannibalistic demon with a great love for Slasher Smiles borders on adorable when in his usual soft, fuzzy form and a jovial attitude.
  • Rosie, the Overlord of Cannibal Town is a lovely, spirited Gentlewoman. Besides the pitch-black eyes, white skin and razor-sharp teeth, she's absolutely charming and a sympathetic ear.
• Everything Is Broken: Many viewers found LG Creepybloom to be this after her Heel–Face Turn, especially since her adorable personality and friendship with Flippy.

Webcomics

• The monsters from Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic are more Ugly Cute than they are this. With the possible exception of Jone.
• In Drowtales, drowolath may see demons this way. Especially Discordia and the second glutton (megaspoiler).
• Gunnerkrigg Court frequently employs this as an art style. Even on its donation page.
• Trying Human has Hue, a Grey alien that manages to be SO ADORABLE and yet is meant to be creepy. Also, most notably, the Reptoids. Meant to be human-eating lizard monsters, but come on, they are so freaking cute, especially Quazky. Reptoids come complete with Cute Little Fangs, which are meant to look evil, but somehow manage not to. At all. Your average Trying Human reptoids, in all their adorableness.
• Many, many creatures of Zoophobia come off as this. Take Perci◊, for example.
• This trope is a staple of Bloody Urban's art style- most of the monster characters are fairly silly-looking while still retaining their spookiness.
• The titular character of Erma is the cutest little Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl you'll ever see.
• Awful Hospital has several of these. The main antagonist, Dr. Phage, is an enormous bacteriophage posing as a surgeon, with a clueless attitude that makes people adore him, and a love of ducks. A dried, human-sized blood stain found on hospital sheets is also quite endearing, due in large part to a scene with a cupcake.
• Paranatural has plenty of spirits that are a mix of creepy and cute. Though special mention goes to P.J., the ghost boy that idolizes Max's "hero lifestyle" and hopes to be a hero himself. It's been so long since he last smiled that his smile ends up being rather disturbing.
• Out-of-Placers has Yannit the Indrel, who looks like a humanoid ant-mantis-thing and still manages to be totally adorable.
• Debugging Destiny has the zombies. King, Mercury, and the artist all think they are cute, but Strider, Elizabeth, and Alexander disagree. At least everyone agrees they are undead abominations.
  King: [While a zombie is trying to eat him] Oh, look, he got further this time! He's so cute. I'm naming him Rex.

Web Original

• Pretty much all of the SCP children from the SCP Foundation, such as SCP-053, SCP-239 and SCP-134.
• Crowd from Deviant is a severely age regressed young adult with the maturity of a 9 year old. Despite this, she's a vigilante. As one would expect, this leads to a weird mix of adorable and terrifying, especially with her fondness for grenades.
• The creature in this◊ sleep paralysis image.

Web Videos

• Many of Doctor Steel's toys (the Buzzsaw Baby, Psycho Sally, Polly Pukes-A-Lot, the Rabies Babies line, etc.) fall into this category.
• "Horror Movie Daycare," by CollegeHumor, is a daycare centre for every child, no matter how eldritch, demon-inhabited or undead. For story-time their minder reads from the Necronomicon.
  "Reagan - Reagan, stop, you're going to make yourself dizzy."
• Many people consider the Creepy Doll from LoadingReadyRun to be very cute, and also psychologically creepy. While he'd appeared in previous videos, it was when he showed up in "The Arms Race" that people really started to like him. Then, when Harry, the giant Creepy Doll, later appeared to torment Graham, both factors leaped up significantly.
  • Harry's cuteness is also a factor of him being significant in Desert Bus for Hope, since he was an adorable friend for crew to hang out with during the marathon.
  • Harry's Distaff Counterpart Harriet ends up slightly on the cuter end of the spectrum than the creepy end. Though, both are extremely creepy in this Crapshot.
• Pretty much the entire cast of Satellite City, but especially Winifred◊.
• All of the characters from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared were obviously meant as parodies of the unintentionally creepy puppets often used in children's media, yet to many fans they have a strange charm to them.
• Vita Carnis has the trimmings, which resemble a cross between a turtle and a skinless raccoon and are spawned from Meat Moss. Despite their unsettling appearance and vocalizations, they're commonly kept as pets and behave more or less like dogs.

Western Animation

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Changelings are shape-shifting Emotion Eaters that look like pony-shaped Big Creepy-Crawlies...and they're absolutely adorable, complete with Cute Little Fangs. So much so that the colorful "ascended changelings" that appear after To Where And Back Again that lack most of said creepy crawly attributes are less cute.
  • Flutterbat from the episode "Bats!"
  • Pinkie Pie's straight-haired, unstable alter ego (dubbed "Pinkamena" by fans) is as huggable as she is disturbing. It helps that she's The Woobie by nature, since Pinkie only turns into her when she's very depressed.
  • The Sphinx from Daring Done? is aggressive, villainous, giant, and has sharp yellowed teeth and slit eyes. Yeah, it's just not possible to make a half-cat half-pony anything less than adorable, particularly in the show's cute art style, and especially when fan artists started playing up her feline attributes.
• Basically all of the Fiends from Making Fiends. Examples are the giant cat, Buttons 2, exploding pigeons, the guard dogs, the Toupee that Mr. Milk wears in one episode, the tentacled fiend, and who could forget Charlotte's fiend, Mr. Huggles? They’re also another example of Ugly Cute.
• The new design for Imp in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power sacrifices the more animalistic features of the original in favor or more human looking ones. The result is something akin to a blue skinned, bat-winged demon baby with blank eyes. He looks like he should be right in the Uncanny Valley, up until you see him start to interact with Hordak and behave a bit like a Right-Hand Cat.
• The Scraplets from Transformers: Prime. Sure, they look all cute if you're an organic, with their big eyes and little limbs, and they're calm and relaxed. But put a Cybertronian in their path, and the teeth come out...
• Breach from Generator Rex. A pale teenager with a school uniform, two sets of arms (With two of them being bigger than they should), and a train of thought that makes her creepily endearing (One episode has her send Rex to another dimension to make him part of her "dollhouse"). But has a childlike attitude, suffers from an incredible case of When She Smiles and all in all is just a lonely kid trying to make friends (Not so effectively mind you, but still). Changing sides also helps.
• GIR and the titular Invader from Invader Zim. Gaz's bedroom is also filled with stuffed animals, dolls, and other paraphernalia that fits this description. The whole show has this aesthetic, actually.
• Codename: Kids Next Door once featured a swarm of giant, hair-eating lice attacking the heroes' treehouse. Said lice were brightly colored and had rather expressive bug-eyes. Near the end of the episode, Numbah Two is covered in baby lice.
• The ginger kids from South Park all have eerie smiles and alabaster skin, but they take so much abuse before being drafted by Cartman into forming a hate group that you can't help but feel sorry for them.
• The ants from the Tales from the Cryptkeeper episode Nature, despite being drawn quite accurate to real life and seen up-close and personal from the perspective of two shrunken brothers, end up being really cute since they're The Woobies of the episode who spend the whole episode protecting and caring for said brothers while struggling just to survive and get some food for the nest.
• Ditzy from The Crumpets. A sweet girl whose balloon-like head regularly comes off, and her body can move headlessly.
• The Mask: Masked Dr Neuman is scary, psychotic, insane and terrifying but however he can act like he's a kid at times with him riding on a child bicycle, a book, a bouncy stick, has a high pitched voice that happens when he gets excited which though can make him scary but sometimes can make him very cute because of it, even pulls wedgie straitjackets as well along with the fact that he has a polite nature as well.
• In Ben 10: Alien Force, Big Chill could be considered this. While his Reaper-like mannerisms and monotone voice do tend to be rather disturbing to some, it is mostly offset by the eerily beautiful color scheme of his wings and body, as well as an almost feminine, slender appearance.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Surprisingly, General Grievous in a weird way. He's a terrifying cyborg Lizard abomination who loves slaughtering Jedi, but his moments of being excitable, overconfident, and awkward compared to his 2003 incarnation, loyalty to his master Count Dooku, and expressive Cat-like eyes and tendency to scuttle around like a crab can be kind of endearing.

Real Life

• Millipedes. Long, slithery bodies and thousands of legs, yet so freaking adorable. It also helps that they're friendly and docile creatures to the point that some people keep them as pets.
• Sea Pigs◊ are related to sea cucumbers, but instead appear to be giant bizarre walking balloons, but their pudgy appearance and docile nature makes them rather adorable.
• Jumping Spiders, are, of course, spiders, the eight legged nightmares of doom, but their especially small appearance and big, puppy like eyes make them rather cute, it's what makes Lucas the Spider so cute.
  • Peacock Spiders from Australia in particular are pretty cute Jumping Spiders, mainly for their dance with their flat abdomen and legs.
• Hyenas absolutely qualify as this with their bone-crunching jaws and large, soft eyes.
• Lykoi cats are so named (Greek for "wolves") because they look like classic movie werewolves. Little bitty werewolves that meow.
• Great Potoo, the superbly fluffy muppet nightmare with big Black Eyes of Evil that haunts the jungles of South America. It's harmless to anything it can't swallow, so one of its defense tactics actually is a good scare, e.g. showing off the bird equivalent of a Slasher Smile with its disproportionately wide beak before making a hasty exit.
• Sphynx Cats, the Canadian-native hairless felines may look like Voldemort in cat form. But they are some of the most affectionate cats to own, tending to them can be timely due to their lack of fur. But like many cat species, they have their quirky moments.
• The Virginia Opossum. Their bald, rodent-like tail, jagged teeth, scraggly fur and Black Bead Eyes set into a long, eerie white face give them the appearance a big mutant rat. They're also very docile, almost completely harmless (their main defense is to play dead and hope you'll go away), glow under blacklight (with scientists having found no discernable reason for them to do so (yet), mind you!), eat large quantities of lyme disease-carrying ticks, and are extremely resistant to rabies. They can also look much less creepy with their puffy winter coat.

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