Pop Culture History Is Filled With Ghosts. But Casper Is Still the Best.

Human beings have told ghost stories since time immemorial. Ghosts are braided into our folklore, after all—think the Headless Horseman or Bloody Mary—and we’ll hazard a guess that even primitive humans were painting ghosts on their cave walls. We love ghosts because they suggest a world without dying, because they can lend a measure of justice to unjust deaths, because they provide a means of communicating with our loved ones from beyond the grave.

However, not all ghosts take themselves and their mission so seriously. Some are mischievous; some are looking for love (and even sex) from the living; others are just plain flatulent. Not all ghosts are crusaders in search of justice or spiritual connection, after all—some are tricksters, some are malingerers, and some are just out to cause as much commotion as they possibly can. Can you really blame them? If you were a ghost, wouldn’t you, too, want to levitate a lamp and make some hapless witness crap his pants?

Here at Esquire, we love all things spooky, so with Halloween fast approaching at the end of the month, we ranked our favorite ghosts from worst to best. It was a challenge riddled with tough decisions, as we have great affection for all these kooky ghosts, yet we had to admit that some of them lost points by refusing to maximize their use of their ghostly powers. Why linger on earth in perpetuity if you’re not going to have a grand old time of it? Buckle up--this ride is haunted.