American Horror Story
Available on: Netflix, Hulu Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the first successful network television horror show since The X-Files.
Apparitions
When The Exorcist first premiered in 1973, it changed everything for horror. A whole world of demonology and exorcism entered into our collective unconscious to torment the masses. Still, the TV world hasn’t done much with exorcism-based horror since that then. BBC’s Apparitions from 2008, however, might be the exception. This is a nifty little horror drama that goes about demons the right way. Apparitions stars Martin Shaw as Father Jacob Mays. Mays is tasked with examining potential miracles for canonization. But as Mays sets out, he begins to come into contact with dark forces in need of some exorcising. Apparitions is an excellent miniseries that has a shockingly complete perspective on how the Catholic Church operates.
Ash vs Evil Dead
Available on: Netflix Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series (consisting of Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) are some of the most deliriously bloody and fun slasher films ever committed to celluloid. Surely, however, a TV series made decades later couldn’t possibly bring the same level of thrill, could it?
Black Summer
Available on: Netflix In a zombie television landscape largely dominated by AMC’s The Walking Dead, Syfy’s Z Nation found a nice with a more playful, tongue-in-cheek presentation of the zombie apocalypse. In this spinoff, Black Summer, things get a touch darker. Jamie King stars as Rose, a mother who is separated from her daughter during the height of a zombie apocalypse. Rose sets out on a mission to recover her and in the process builds a group of like-minded individuals looking for something they’ve lost.
Castle Rock
Available on: Hulu Stephen King properties have made their way to television before. There have been miniseries for classic King texts like The Stand and ‘Salem’s Lot and even full series for works like Rose Red and Under the Dome. Still, none of those series has had the audacity to adapt multiple aspects of the Stephen King universe itself…until Castle Rock.
Castlevania
Available on: Netflix Netflix has beefed up its anime offerings in recent years and one of the first IPs they mined to do so was atmospheric Konami videogame series Castlevania. Originally planned as a film, Castlevania makes good use of its serialized format to pick up the horror story from where it begins with 1989 gameCastlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. And what a story it is. Wallachian lord (and vampire, obvs.) Vlad Dracula Tepes (Graham McTavish) falls into a mighty rage after his wife is wrongly accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Vlad summons an army of the dead to declare war on the living of Wallachia. The only people who stand in his path are a ragged band of heroes led by Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage).
Chambers
Available on: Netflix Chambers only survived one season at Netflix, proving once again that it’s tough out there for horror television shows. But the one season legacy the show leaves behind is a decently spooky one.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Available on: Netflix After the Archie comic universe got a gritty reboot in The CW’s Riverdale, it was only a matter of time before Archie cousin comic Sabrina the Teenage Witch got her turn. Thankfully Netflix stepped up to the plate with the Kiernan Shipka starring Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and even more thankfully…it’s gritty as all hell. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina brings witchcraft back to its absolutely metal satanic origins. Sabrina Spellman (Shipka) is like any teenager at Baxter High. She’s concerned about her grades, her social status, and her impending 16th birthday in which she must undergo a dark ritual in which she’ll have to grant her loyalty to the Dark Lord Satan. Such is life for a half-mortal/half-witch.
Dark/Web
The Exorcist
Available on: Hulu The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Fox series that bears its name and premise isn’t quite as good (few things could ever be) but it’s still an excellent horror story in its own right. The Exorcist is a two-season long anthology series that follows two different cases of demonic possession. In the first installment, two Catholic priests assist a woman with a possession in her home. In the second, two new priests help a young girl battle evil.
Folklore
Available on: HBO Max HBO’s 2019 series Folklore is based on a novel concept. HBO Asia has access to some of the best horror storytellers in the East. Why not give them carte blanche to tell the horrifying stories they want to tell in an anthology format?
Ghost Adventures
Available on: Hulu Since the turn of the millennium, television has not been lacking for shows involving paranormal investigations. But even within the crowded spooky market, Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures stands out. First premiering in 2008, Ghost Adventures follows paranormal researchers Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley as they travel the world looking for ghoulish occurrences to investigate. Over its 200-some episodes (not including specials), Ghost Adventures has proven itself to be the gold standard for people who just want to watch some dudes stumble around old properties in night vision.
Haunted
Available on: Netflix Haunted is a bit of an odd duck among Netflix’s horror offerings. It was introduced for the 2018 Halloween season, just a week before the juggernaut Haunting of Hill House. As such, it got lost in the spooky shuffle. Still, this is a surprisingly effective take on your classic “tell a scary story” style TV series.
The Haunting of Hill House
Available on: Netflix Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House is considered one of the most important texts in the horror literature canon. It’s only fitting then that it’s Hill House that Netflix turned to when the time came to make its first big original horror series. It’s also fitting that they turned to Hush director Mike Flanagan to make it happen. Flanagan’s version of The Haunting of Hill House is quite different from the novel from which it takes its name. This Haunting is a modern story that follows the Crain family as they try to recover from the trauma they sustained as kids living in the terrifying Hill House. Of course, Hill House is still out there just dying to call them all back home. Netflix is going to keep “The Haunting” going with The Haunting of Bly Manor and presumably more to come after that.
The Haunting of Bly Manor
Available on: Netflix The consensus is that The Haunting of Bly Manor is significantly less scary than Mike Flanagan’s original Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House…and that consensus is correct. But there are still plenty of scares to be had in this worthy followup.
The Living and the Dead
The BBC’s The Living and the Dead is an aesthetically beautiful show. It’s not entirely dissimilar to a British-ized The Returned. It stars Colin Moran as Nathan Appleby, a psychology who inherits a beautiful, if creepy manor. Sure, the property is a touch isolated but that doesn’t concern Nathan and his wife. It should because what comes next is a bit more Amityville Horror than The Returned.
Lore
Lovecraft Country
Available on: HBO Max Classic horror literature is largely dominated by white voices and white characters. HBO’s bold adaptation of the book Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, seeks to seamlessly insert some Black voices and characters into the historical horror canon. To that end Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett star as Atticus “Tic” Freeman and Letitia “Leti” Lewis – two Black Chicagoans discovering magic in 1950s America. The plot is structured as a sort-of anthology with Tic, Leti, and their friends and family dealing with the supernatural weekly while also engaged with the machinations of the ancient Braithwhite family. With a deep appreciation of monsters, both real and imagined, Lovecraft Country is worthwhile horror programming.
Monsterland
Available on: Hulu Since Netflix acquired the rights to Black Mirror back in 2015, the streaming world has been a veritable arms race of sci-fi and horror anthology series. Hulu has already tried its hand at horror anthology with the Blumhouse-produced Into the Dark, and Monsterland represents the latest effort.
One Step Beyond
The amazing drama you are about to see is a matter of human record,” runs John Newland’s introduction to this Twilight Zone-esque series. “The real people who lived this story, they believe it, they know, they took that one step beyond. Famously, Newland took one step beyond himself when making “The Sacred Mushroom” episode in which he ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms and filmed his reaction. It’s not available here, but it’s out there in both senses of the phrase.
The Outer Limits
Available on: Hulu When The Twilight Zone premiered in 1959, it set off a brief little renaissance of anthology horror storytelling on television. The best of these contenders to the Zone‘s throne was probably the sci-fi centric The Outer Limits.
The Outsider
Available on: HBO Max Stephen King is among the most adapted authors of all time. And yet, even after all this time, the King canon is able to produce some surprises. HBO’s miniseries (or series, they’ve not really made that clear) The Outsider, based on a 2018 King novel of the same name and developed for television by The Night Of‘s Richard Price, is one such pleasant surprise. The genius of this story is how it first presents as a true crime tale, with little league coach Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) being arrested for the unspeakably violent murder of a local boy. But as Detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) looks further into the case, he discovers there might be a supernatural force at play. The Outsider deftly delves into themes of belief, skepticism, and family, all the while asking viewers “how long would it take for you give in and believe the unbelievable?”
The X-Files
Available on: Hulu The X-Files is quite simply the gold standard for horror on television. Chris Carter’s conspiracy-tinged supernatural masterpiece not only inspired every horror TV show that came after it, but just about every other TV show in general.
Scare Tactics
Available on: Netflix Scare Tactics is what happens when someone looks at the prank camera show format and thinks “What if this but also dangerous and terrifying?” The concept of Scare Tactics is simple: take normal people, put them in elaborate horror movie situations, and film what happens. Awful? Yes. Entertaining? Absolutley! Shannen Doherty hosted the first incarnation of the show that premiered on Syfy in 2003. Stephen Baldwin took her place in the middle of the show’s second season. Then after a three-year hiatus, Scare Tactics returned with Tracy Morgan at the helm and lasted three more seasons of hilariously cruel pranking.
Stan Against Evil
Available on: Hulu To parody horror, one needs to love horror. And Stan Against Evil creator Dana Gould really, really, really loves horror. The longtime standup comedian and comedy writer brings his unique humor sensibilities and lifelong appreciation of horror to tell the story of a quaint New Hampshire town that just happens to be built on the cursed site of a massive witch burning.
Stranger Things
Available on: Netflix It seems so obvious now but in hindsight there was little buzz about this nostalgic tweenage horror project on Netflix from the relatively unknown Duffer Brothers. Little did we know that the Stev(ph)ens Spielberg and King inspired Stranger Things would be one of Netflix’s biggest hits. Stranger Things takes place in the fictional Hawkins, Indiana in the mid-’80s. Hawkins is your typical smal ltown American city. The kids like to ride bikes, play Dungeons and Dragons, and tease one another. Little does everyone know that the mysterious government building on the outskirts of town may have opened a portal to another world – a portal that will usher in multiple seasons worth of monster fighting mayhem.
The Strain
Available on: Hulu The most novel thing about FX’s vampire horror thriller The Strain is how it equates the ancient fear of vampirism with the more modern, global fear of pandemic. The Strain, produced by Guillermo del Toro Chuck Hogan and based on their novel series opens with a flight landing with all of its passengers mysteriously dead. As CDC director Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) steps in to investigate, he discovers that there might be something more sinister…and ancient afoot than a simple virus. The Strain lasted for four mostly decent seasons on FX and if nothing else helped re-embrace the vampire as a monster and not some sort of noble antihero.
The Terror
Available on: Hulu Based on a 2007 book of the same name by Dan Simmons, The Terror season 1 tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to the arctic in 1845. In real life, the doomed men likely got lost and succumbed to the cold but the show asks “what if there was something more sinister than low temperatures lurking about?” The Terror features a cast impressively full of “hey it’s that guy” guys like Jared Harris, Ciarán Hindis, and Tobias Menzes. It deftly turned itself into an anthology with the second season The Terror: Infamy that tells a ghost story within the setting of a Japanese interment camp in World War II.
The Twilight Zone
Available on: Hulu The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe. Whatever you do, however, do NOT drop your glasses.
Unsolved Mysteries
Available on: Netflix Any reboot of continuation of the classic ’80s/’90s true crime series Unsolved Mysteries just needs one element to be considered authentic: that music. Thankfully, this modern iteration on Netflix maintains a version of the original’s haunting theme. Beyond that crucial aspect, Unsolved Mysteries honors the original by continuing the formula to great success. Unsolved Mysteries remains largely a true crime enterprise. The show covers unexplained disappearances, murders, and crimes. But it also spends plenty of time with the truly unexplained: the paranormal. This reboot has covered UFOs and some tsunami ghosts. That, combined with the atmospheric music, makes this a suitably spooky watch.
The Veil
1958’s The Veil consists of dramatizations of strange tales, the majority of which also feature host Boris Karloff in the cast. At story’s end, our host is back to offer a conclusion to that particular story of “the world beyond our understanding.” Not that 1950s TV audiences would have known about it, because The Veil wasn’t broadcast. Footage from its episodes appeared in some late sixties TV movies, and a DVD release followed in the 1990s, but its cancellation prior to airing have made it a cult find.
title: “31 Best Horror Tv Shows On Streaming Services” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-04” author: “Lloyd Hobbs”
Still, in the modern streaming era, there are plenty of horror TV shows that get the spooky job done. Gathered on Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, and more are some truly great streaming options to elevate the heart rate. Here we’ve compiled the very best of the best. What follows are the 31 best streaming horror TV shows.
American Horror Story
Available on: Prime Video (U.S.), Hulu (U.S.), Disney+ (U.K.) Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the most successful television horror show since The X-Files.
Ash vs Evil Dead
Available on: Netflix Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series (consisting of Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) are some of the most deliriously bloody and fun slasher films ever committed to celluloid. Surely, however, a TV series made decades later couldn’t possibly bring the same level of thrill, could it? Wrong! Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead is another installment of fantastic comedy horror. Bruce Campbell returns as Evil Dead hero Ash Williams, who has done seemingly little with his life since battling the forces of evil (and dead) 30 years ago. That all changes when the dead walk once again and Ash, and some new friends must pick up the chainsaw once again.
Black Summer
Available on: Netflix In a zombie television landscape largely dominated by AMC’s The Walking Dead, Syfy’s Z Nation found a niche with a more playful, tongue-in-cheek presentation of the zombie apocalypse. In this spinoff, Black Summer, things get a touch darker.
Castle Rock
Available on: Hulu (U.S.), Starz (U.K.) Stephen King properties have made their way to television before. There have been miniseries for classic King texts like The Stand and ‘Salem’s Lot and even full series for works like Rose Red and Under the Dome. Still, none of those series has had the audacity to adapt multiple aspects of the Stephen King universe itself…until Castle Rock. Castle Rock takes multiple characters, storylines, and concepts from the vast works of Stephen King and puts them all in King’s own Castle Rock, Maine. The first season featured inmates from Shawshank prison, extended family of Jack Torrance, and maybe even a touch of the shine. The show then opened itself up for more storytelling possibilities in season 2, adopting an anthology format and bringing Annie Wilkes into the fold.
Castlevania
Available on: Netflix Netflix has beefed up its anime offerings in recent years and one of the first IPs they mined to do so was atmospheric Konami videogame series Castlevania. Originally planned as a film, Castlevania makes good use of its serialized format to pick up the horror story from where it begins with 1989 game Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse.
Channel Zero
Available on: AMC+ We won’t lie to you: Channel Zero is a bit of a pain to find on streaming services. Currently the only place to access Syfy’s spooky series in the U.S. is on AMC+ (and only available for purchase on Prime Video in the U.K.). Still, Channel Zero might be worth the subscription alone. Though it never quite found a suitably sizable audience, Channel Zero is some of the best horror television since…ever? Like many other shows on this list, Channel Zero is an anthology, with each new season adapting a different “creepypasta” from internet lore. Unlike many of the other shows on this, however, every single new story presented on Channel Zero is an absolute banger. The monster creations on this show are the stuff of legitimate nightmares. When combined with the steadfast scary storytelling sensibilities from its capable crew of writers, it makes for one hell of a horror experience.
Chucky
Available on: Peacock (U.S.), Sky Go (U.K.) Pencil Chucky into the increasingly lengthy television category of “stuff that shouldn’t work but somehow does.” Featuring the iconic creepy doll character from the Child’s Play horror series, Chucky reworks itself into an episodic format far better than anyone might have expected.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Available on: Netflix After the Archie comic universe got a gritty reboot in The CW’s Riverdale, it was only a matter of time before Archie cousin comic Sabrina the Teenage Witch got her turn. Thankfully Netflix stepped up to the plate with the Kiernan Shipka-starring Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and even more thankfully…it’s gritty as all hell. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina brings witchcraft back to its absolutely metal satanic origins. Sabrina Spellman (Shipka) is like any teenager at Baxter High. She’s concerned about her grades, her social status, and her impending 16th birthday in which she must undergo a dark ritual in which she’ll have to grant her loyalty to the Dark Lord Satan. Such is life for a half-mortal/half-witch.
Evil
Available on: Paramount+ (U.S.), Virgin TV Go (U.K.) Ever since The X-Files went off the air in 2002 (and then again in 2016 and again in 2018), network television has struggled to find a suitably creepy paranormal procedural. That all changed in 2019 when CBS debuted the preposterously pulpy and entertainingly eerie Evil. Granted, CBS bumped Evil over to streaming quarantine with future seasons being hosted on Paramount+. But network television’s loss is the streaming world’s gain.
The Exorcist
Available on: Hulu (U.S.), Prime Video (U.K.) The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Fox series that bears its name and premise isn’t quite as good (few things could ever be) but it’s still an excellent horror story in its own right. The Exorcist is a two-season long anthology series that follows two different cases of demonic possession. In the first installment, two Catholic priests assist a woman with a possession in her home. In the second, two new priests help a young girl battle evil.
The Fades
Available on: Prime Video (U.S.), Hulu (U.S.), BBC iPlayer (U.K.) The Fades is the story of Paul (Iain de Caestecker), a teenager who can see dead people. A fracture in the ascension process between life and death has left Earth populated by wandering wraiths, who are growing angrier and more vengeful with every passing year. When the Fades discover a way to take revenge on the living, a group called the Angelics has to stop them.
Folklore
Available on: HBO Max HBO’s 2019 series Folklore is based on a novel concept. HBO Asia has access to some of the best horror storytellers in the East. Why not give them carte blanche to tell the horrifying stories they want to tell in an anthology format? Folklore features episodes from filmmakers based in Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and South Korea. Each installment is unique to that country’s sensibilities and also entirely terrifying.
Hammer House of Horror
Available on: Peacock (U.S.), BritBox (U.K.) Hammer Film Productions is one of the most iconic horror movie studios ever. Since the middle of the 20th century, the British production company churned out dozens of horror films that featured iconic characters like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, and more. It’s only natural then that after dominating one horror medium in film, Hammer would turns its ghastly eye to television.
Hannibal
Assigned to: Hulu (U.S.), Prime Video (U.K.) For those who like their horror with a healthy dose of blood (no like, really: A HEAPING dose of blood) look further than Hannibal. Despite its genteel network origins, NBC’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’s iconic character is one of the bloodiest and most disturbing properties ever presented on American television. Mads Mikkelsen stars as Dr. Hannibal Lecter: a therapist, gourmand, and secret cannibal. Hugh Dancy stars as Will Graham, the criminal profiler who would end up ensnared in the title character’s evil web. Thanks to the chemistry between the two leads and the wonderfully violent stories dreamed up by showrunner Bryan Fuller, the show developed a big fandom that is still waiting for (or rather demanding) a fourth season today.
The Haunting of Hill House
Available on: Netflix Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House is considered one of the most important texts in the horror literature canon. It’s only fitting then that it’s Hill House that Netflix turned to when the time came to make its first big original horror series. It’s also fitting that they turned to Hush director Mike Flanagan to make it happen.
The Haunting of Bly Manor
Available on: Netflix The consensus is that The Haunting of Bly Manor is significantly less scary than Mike Flanagan’s original Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House…and that consensus is correct. But there are still plenty of scares to be had in this worthy followup. Bly Manor borrows elements from the works of Henry James, including The Turn of the Screw, to craft another affecting ghost story. Hill House‘s Victoria Pedretti returns as Dani, a young American woman who takes on a job as a governess to two young children at the titular Bly Manor. Soon Dani and all involved will come to find that Bly Manor holds some serious (weirdly romantic) secrets.
Lisey’s Story
Available on: Apple TV+ Despite the success of shows like For All Mankind and Ted Lasso, Apple TV+ remains a little further down the streaming TV dial than its competitors. One certainly can’t blame it then for tapping into the same well that has served so many other networks capably: a Stephen King adaptation.
Lovecraft Country
Available on: HBO Max (U.S.), Sky Go (U.K.) Classic horror literature is largely dominated by white voices and white characters. HBO’s bold adaptation of the book Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, seeks to seamlessly insert some Black voices and characters into the historical horror canon. To that end Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett star as Atticus “Tic” Freeman and Letitia “Leti” Lewis – two Black Chicagoans discovering dark magic in 1950s America. The plot is structured as a sort-of anthology with Tic, Leti, and their friends and family dealing with the supernatural weekly while also engaged with the machinations of the ancient Braithwhite family. With a deep appreciation of monsters, both real and imagined, Lovecraft Country is worthwhile horror programming.
Marianne
Available on: Netflix This eight-episode series about a successful writer who, having bled her teenage nightmares for book material, now faces its real-life return was warmly received by horror fans on its arrival in 2019. The eight-episode first season (sadly, it wasn’t renewed for a second) is packed with classic scares which, though familiar, were handled extremely well. The French setting added a new element for UK and US viewers more used to seeing such hauntings play out in English.
Midnight Mass
Available on: Netflix Starting with The Haunting of Hill House in 2018, it’s become something of a quasi-yearly tradition for Netflix to release a new spooky series from horror auteur Mike Flanagan in time for Halloween. 2021’s offering was Midnight Mass, an unsettling seven-episode outing that would prove to be Flanagan’s most personal (and ultimately his favorite). Midnight Mass is an examination of faith, grief, and community. Set on a sparsely-populated working class island, the show picks up when a mysterious preacher man, Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater) comes to town. Soon enough, Father Paul is able to perform things that seem like miracles. But are they? And also: have you ever noticed how the biblical description of angels sounds like … well, you just have to watch it.
The Outsider
Available on: HBO Max (U.S.), Sky Go (U.K.) Stephen King is among the most adapted authors of all time. And yet, even after all this time, the King canon is able to produce some surprises. HBO’sThe Outsider, based on a 2018 King novel of the same name and developed for television by The Night Of‘s Richard Price, is one such pleasant surprise.
The Purge
Available on: Peacock (U.S.), Prime Video (U.K.) Thanks to NBC and its affiliated networks getting their pick of the Universal movie catalogue, Peacock is home to a surprising number of horror movie TV adaptations. Among the best of them is USA Network’s The Purge. Through two action-packed seasons on cable television, The Purge got to take the film franchise’s already big premise and expand it into parts unknown. For the uninitiated, The Purge takes place in an alternate history United States where during one 12-hour period a year all laws are suspended and citizens are encouraged to get their most malevolent energies out of their system. With some added narrative elbow room, the show not only got to explore the night of the Purge but the totalitarian systems in place that would let it happen to begin with.
The X-Files
Available on: Freevee (U.S.), Hulu (U.S.), Disney+ (U.K.) The X-Files is quite simply the gold standard for horror on television. Chris Carter’s conspiracy-tinged supernatural masterpiece not only inspired every horror TV show that came after it, but just about every other TV show in general.
Servant
Available on: Apple TV+ When Servant first premiered in 2019, Apple TV+ was understandably eager to publicize that M. Night Shyamalan produced the show. Despite the prolific horror movie director’s involvement, however, Servant isn’t quite pure horror per sé. But it is dark, grimy, unsettling as all hell, and occasionally even a little funny! Servant follows Sean and Dorothy Turner, a wealthy Philadelphia couple who hire nanny Leanne Grayson to look after their infant son, Jericho. Thing is though – Jericho is not a child but a lifelike “reborn” doll the couple purchased to help cope with the loss of their real son. While that’s a creepy enough premise to begin with, Servant soon splinters off into some truly wild directions bringing cults, a touch of the supernatural, and a lot of incredible shots of food to the table.
Stan Against Evil
Available on: Hulu (U.S.), Prime Video (U.K.) To parody horror, one needs to love horror. And Stan Against Evil creator Dana Gould really, really, really loves horror. The longtime standup comedian and comedy writer brings his unique humor sensibilities and lifelong appreciation of horror to tell the story of a quaint New Hampshire town that just happens to be built on the cursed site of a massive witch burning.
Stranger Things
Available on: Netflix It seems so obvious now but in hindsight there was little buzz about this nostalgic tweenage horror project on Netflix from the relatively unknown Duffer Brothers. Little did we know that the Stev(ph)ens Spielberg and King-inspired Stranger Things would be one of Netflix’s biggest hits. Stranger Things takes place in the fictional Hawkins, Indiana in the mid-’80s. Hawkins is your typical smal ltown American city. The kids like to ride bikes, play Dungeons & Dragons, and tease one another. Unfortunately it also just happens to be home to a mysterious government building on the outskirts of town may have opened a portal to another world – a portal that will usher in multiple seasons worth of monster fighting mayhem.
Tales of the Unexpected
Available on: Freevee (U.S.) Sky Go (U.K.) Not all horror involves demonic creatures and the supernatural; there’s evil enough in humankind to sustain years of chilling storytelling, which is just what Tales of the Unexpected exploited throughout its nine-series ITV run. Some of these half-hours did dip a toe into the paranormal (who could forget the plump infant reveal of ‘Royal Jelly’?), but they mostly showcase earthly corruption and domestic noir, like chilling child abduction tale ‘Flypaper’. With 112 episodes in total, around a third were based on stories by Roald Dahl, whose name prefixed the title in the early years and who filmed fireside introductions teasing what was to follow. The nasty misanthropy of Dahl’s imagination is well-known to those who’ve read his children’s books, and it found full expression here with stories of revenge, lies, murder and cannibalism.
The Terror
Available on: Hulu (U.S.), Sky Go (U.K.) Based on a 2007 book of the same name by Dan Simmons, The Terror season 1 tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to the arctic in 1845. In real life, the doomed men likely got lost and succumbed to the cold but the show asks “what if there was something more sinister than low temperatures lurking about?” The Terror features a cast impressively full of “hey it’s that guy” guys like Jared Harris, Ciarán Hindis, and Tobias Menzes. It deftly turned itself into an anthology with the second season The Terror: Infamy that tells a ghost story within the setting of a Japanese interment camp in World War II.
Them
Available on: Prime Video Premiering in April 2021, just half a year after Lovecraft Country‘s series finale, Them is another TV series that understands no embellishment is necessary when cataloguing the horrors of the Jim Crow era…but throwing a few supernatural terrors in there still helps. This Prime Video series from Little Marvin and Lena Waithe follows the Emorys, a Black family in 1953 who moves from North Carolina to an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles. While in the idyllic west, seemingly living out the idyllic American life, the family soon discovers that their home might be a gathering place for all manner of evil forces.
The Twilight Zone
Available on: Paramount+ The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe. Whatever you do, however, do NOT drop your glasses.
Unsolved Mysteries
Available on: Netflix Any reboot of continuation of the classic ’80s/’90s true crime series Unsolved Mysteries just needs one element to be considered authentic: that music. Thankfully, this modern iteration on Netflix maintains a version of the original’s haunting theme. Beyond that crucial aspect, Unsolved Mysteries honors the original by continuing the formula to great success. Unsolved Mysteries remains largely a true crime enterprise. The show covers unexplained disappearances, murders, and crimes. But it also spends plenty of time with the truly unexplained: the paranormal. This reboot has covered UFOs and some tsunami ghosts. That, combined with the atmospheric music, makes this a suitably spooky watch.
