The weather’s getting colder (terrifying in itself), which means that spooky season is upon us. If there’s some compensation for the shorter days and darker evenings, it’s the onset of that sense that the veil between worlds truly is beginning to recede. Or maybe it’s just the evocative plastic pumpkin displays at Target. Either way, it’s the time of year when our thoughts turn to horror.
The peak-TV phenomenon hasn’t limited itself to courtroom dramas and star-powered single-camera sitcoms: There’s also some genuinely impressive stuff going on in the world of TV horror, even beyond usual suspects like The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Black Mirror, and Stranger Things. Since horror isn’t so much a genre as a broad umbrella, there are some incredible recent shows that fill just about every niche.
Evil (2019 – 2024, four seasons)
A forensic psychologist, a Catholic seminarian, and a tech contractor (sounds like the beginning of a very awkward joke), are hired by the Catholic Church to investigate potential supernatural events. Frankly, at the outset the show didn’t sound particularly promising: A CBS crime procedural with demons sounds like a recipe for X-Files lite. What’s here, though, is surprisingly dark and rich, with leads Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi delivering solid character work while the show genuinely tussles with the nature of good and evil. Despite a devoted fanbase and killer streaming numbers, the show was canceled after four seasons—it comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion, though superfans like Stephen King are hoping for life after cancellation.
Where to stream: Paramount+, Netflix
Creepshow (2019 –, four seasons)
There are good reasons for my love of TV anthology horror: If one story or episode isn’t great, there’s always the next one; plus, at under an hour, you’re not committing a huge amount of time. This new Creepshow, though, is something surprising: It’s consistently good. Sometimes gross, sometimes funny, each episode has two stories that are very much in the style of the movies for which the show is named (or Tales from the Darkside—that kinda vibe). Producer/director/special effects guy Greg Nicotero, best known these days for his work on The Walking Dead, is running the series. He got his start on Creepshow 2 from way back in the day, so there’s a real appreciation for old-school practical effects here, as well. The show is a Shudder original, so that’s where you’ll find the newest episodes (the third season is coming this month), but earlier seasons are available elsewhere.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, Prime Video
Chucky (2021 – 2024, three seasons)
Overseen from the beginning by creator Don Mancini, the Child’s Play universe has built a surprisingly coherent mythology over the decades, while rarely taking itself too seriously. The TV version draws on all of that while building its own coming-of-age (or, rather, “rage,” according to the show’s tagline) story around 14-year-old Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur), a queer kid being raised by a dad who doesn’t have much respect for his artsy son. Jake picks up a doll possessed by the title’s serial killer, and Chucky begins to see the (justifiably) angry kid as a potential protégé. Before long, characters from Chucky’s past pop in to complicate things, but relationship between Jake and Chucky remains the show’s beating heart. Even with its dark sense of humor and and over-the-top murders, the show became an unlikely critical favorite.
Where to stream: Peacock, AMC+, Shudder
Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021, miniseries)
Hollywood is hell. That’s almost a horror genre unto itself, and there’s a David Lynch/Mulholland Drive feel (with what appear to be nods to Eraserhead, as well) to this limited series from Lenore Zion and Nick Antosca (Channel Zero). Rose Salizar plays Lisa Nova, a newcomer to LA who’s determined to direct her first feature film. She’s betrayed by someone she ought not have trusted, and her course for revenge sees her enter into a weird, trippy, and gloopy world of zombies, curses, and freaky cats. It’s a show that’s clearly proud of its own weirdness, and that translates into a lurid, almost giallo-esque horror vibe. The earlier Channel Zero miniseries, to which this feels like a new iteration, are also worth a look if you like the feel.
Where to stream: Netflix
Dark (2017 – 2020, three seasons)
A simple-seeming, if disturbing, case of missing children in a German town quickly grows into something that involves four families over multiple generations. There’s a mystery in the cave system that runs beneath the local nuclear power plant, and it ties into dark secrets that each family (and the town as a whole) has been concealing for decades. Without spoiling too much, the show’s characters don’t just visit the past metaphorically, but literally, as well, a time-travel element that only adds to the show’s impressively twisting and creepy delights. It was Netflix’s first German import, but don’t let the subtitles steer you away.
Where to stream: Netflix
The Last of Us (2023 –, one season)
One of the buzziest shows of 2023, The Last of Us joins the vexclusive club of video game adaptations that click, in this case even picking up a bunch of Emmy nominations. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey star as Joel and Ellie, travelers through an apocalyptic wasteland populated by zombified humans infected by a fungus. There’s genuine suspense and expertly crafted horror in the show’s zombie threat, but it’s all built around the dynamic between Joel and Ellie, a beaten-down smuggler and the immune teenager he’s being paid to deliver to the other side of the country. Their relationship sells the premise, and makes the stakes feel very real when the zombie mushroom people come out to bite.
Where to stream: Max
Interview with the Vampire (2022 –, two seasons)
Ripping away much of the subtext of Anne Rice’s novel, the rather brilliant new adaptation embraces the queer themes and racial tensions that were mostly just hinted at in the original. Jacob Anderson plays Louis de Pointe du Lac, a closeted Black Creole man running a successful brothel in New Orleans when he meets, fatefully, libertine vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, who turns Louis before the two set up housekeeping—carving a bloody swath through NOLA before adopting a feral vampire daughter. The troubling chemistry among the leads is explosive, and the show’s exploration of an abusive, co-dependent relationship gives it an emotional heft beyond its lush production values.
Where to stream: Netflix, AMC+
Servant (2019 – 2023, four seasons)
This one’s bizarre, no question: Following the death of their 13-week-old son, a couple (played by Lauren Ambrose and Toby Kebbell) acquires a lifelike doll as a therapeutic tool—based on a real-life technique that, presumably, doesn’t typically lead to horror. Something’s not quite right about the doll, to which mom Dorothy becomes rather more attached than is intended; the couple eventually hire a live-in nanny to care for baby Jericho, and something’s definitely not right about her. Or maybe it’s just the kind of weird stuff that happens to people with enough money to pay for therapy AND a special helper just for a doll. M. Night Shyamalan is one of the executive producers, which gives you a sense of the disturbing, creepy vibe that the show is going for.
Where to stream: Apple TV+
Lovecraft Country (2020, one season)
A Black family sets off on a road trip across Jim Crow America—there’s potential for real horror in that premise, alone. Matt Ruff’s novel, on which the show is based, is one of a handful of impressive books written over the past decade or so that attempt to reconcile the unabashedly racist outlook of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft with the power and appeal of his creations, and so the series unearths some of the darkest terrors of 20th century America, and places them alongside and inside a Lovecraftian universe of elder gods and dark dimensions. Jurnee Smollett and Jonathan Majors are tremendous in the lead roles, and the series, as well, features a great turn from Michael K. Williams in one of his final performances.
Where to stream: Max, Tubi
30 Coins (2020 –, two seasons)
There’s a bit of the monster-of-the-week format to 30 Coins, but in other ways the Spanish import from cult director Álex de la Iglesia isn’t like anything else on TV (the opening episode sees a cow giving birth to a human baby). A priest, a veterinarian, and a mayor (not, in this case, the setup for a joke) become embroiled in the supernatural mysteries in their town of Pedraza that seem to have to do with a strange coin that might have been one of the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas for betraying Jesus. The feel is closest to Lovecraft-meets-The Exorcist, with Christian mythology subbing in for eldritch horrors. Max canceled the series after two seasons, but a third is being shopped elsewhere.
Where to stream: Max
Gyeongseong Creature (2023 – , two seasons)
A giant hit globally that’s gaining viewers steadily stateside, this South Korean import blends historical drama with monster horror in a fun, and really compelling way. Set in 1945 Gyeongseong (modern-day Seoul), and during the Japanese occupation of Korea, the series finds the title’s monster arising out of human experimentation conducted in secret by the Japanese army. The scars of occupation have been justifiably fertile ground for storytelling in the last few years (see also Apple’s Pachinko), and Gyeongseong adds science fiction action to that mix. The second season moves the action to the present day, with a third season renewal looking likely.
Where to stream: Netflix
From (2022 –, three seasons)
Ever felt trapped in a small town? For residents of The Town (we never get a name), that feeling is very literal: once you set foot there, you can never leave. Oh, and did I mention that creatures come from the woods and kill anyone found outside after dark? Doesn’t sound quite as bad as the town where I grew up, but nevertheless: concerning. In the first couple of episodes, the Matthews family learn all about this first hand when they roll into town in their RV and find themselves trapped alongside the local sheriff (Harold Perrineau) … and it’s getting dark. The show’s monsters aren’t just mindlessly hungry, they’re cunning and sadistic, and more than capable of killing residents in impressively gory ways.
Where to stream: MGM+
Hannibal (2013 – 2015, three seasons)
By 2013, it really felt as though we’d seen more than enough of Hannibal Lecter and co., a series of Silence of the Lambs spin-offs and sequels having become increasingly tiresome. Still, producer Bryan Fuller went back to the source material here, once again adapting Thomas Harris’s first Lecter novel with operatic style, visual flair (you’re unlikely to find more gorgeously constructed scenes of carnage), and deeper, sexier relationship between the good Doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) and profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). It ended a bit too early, but the three seasons still make for a satisfying meal.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, Prime Video
Dark Shadows (1966 – 1971)
Modern TV shows might give you 10 episodes a season but, if you’re looking to kill more time than that, there are always the 1,225 episodes of Dark Shadows, the popular 1960s soap opera. Starting out as a gothic, Jane Eyre-style tale set among a wealthy but decayed family in a Maine fishing village, the show soon introduced ghosts, a phoenix-lady and, most famously, vampire Barnabas Collins. Always on the hunt for new horrors, the show saw the residents of Collinsport stalked and murdered (and resurrected and murdered again) by updated versions of every classic creature imaginable. There are a lot of episodes, but sticking with it yields the pleasures of the show’s increasing and compelling weirdness: Characters alter history by traveling through time, get chased by mystical floating hands, and even visit parallel universes long before Marvel got in on that action.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Peacock (limited episodes)
Them (2021 –, two seasons)
Starting off in the 1950s, Them takes a stab at The Second Great Migration, when millions of Black people left the South for northern cities and suburbs; seeking opportunity and escaping overt racism in favor of slightly more veiled racism. The Emory family (lead by Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas) move from North Carolina to an all-white neighborhood in East Compton, each family member eventually haunted by a different ghost. Of course, the smiling white faces concealing vicious intent are far more frightening than any specters. The second season moves forward to LA of 1991.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Swamp Thing (2019, one season)
Some of this might hit a little close to home these days: A CDC doctor returns to her hometown in the Louisiana bayou to investigate a mysterious virus that the locals don’t want to deal with or talk about until it’s much too late. When a local biologist is killed (more or less) for helping her, suspicions turn to a local corporation. The show doesn’t reach the heady, psychedelic heights of the comics source material, but it does bring a level of body horror that’s probably not surprising given that the show is about a man who turns into a plant, but also as it has James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) onboard as an executive producer.
Swamp Thing’s got some genuinely impressive gore effects, not only having to do with the main character but also involving the plant-based outbreak that takes over the misty, sleepy Louisiana town where it’s set. To lend the show a final bit of horror cred, the title character is played by actor/stuntman Derek Mears, also the most recent Jason Voorhees. The show was rather notoriously canceled before it was even finished filming (something to do with lost tax credits), but it still manages to wrap up its storylines fairly neatly, if abruptly.
Where to stream: Tubi
Wellington Paranormal (2018 – 2022, four seasons)
2014’s What We Do in the Shadows (the movie) was, it turns out, the kick-off to a deeply unlikely franchise; it’s the low-budget vampire comedy from New Zealand that could. The TV series of the same name actually wasn’t the first spin-off from the film, nor is it the most direct: Wellington Paranormal reunites the well-meaning but exceedingly credulous police officers, O’Leary and Minogue, from the film and sends them off to investigate the various ghosts, zombies, and aliens plaguing the Wellington metro area. The show’s been popular in NZ, but has only recently gone global. Admittedly, it’s not particularly scary, but it’s an excellent parody of all those Ghost Hunters-style shows. It doesn’t have the scope of its sister series, but the standalone episodes make for concentrated blasts of creepy, goofy fun.
Where to stream: Max
Stan Against Evil (2016 – 2018, three seasons)
Drawing inspiration from Evil Dead, Stan Against Evil stars John C. McGinley as the crotchety, obnoxious former sheriff of a New Hampshire town overrun with vengeful spirits. Janet Varney comes to town as his replacement, and the two soon realize that the uneasy spirits and demons aren’t going to be quiet for much longer. The awkward chemistry between the leads is a big selling point, as are the old-school practical monster effects. The show leans more toward funny (and it’s often very funny) than scary, but the monster effects are well done, and the show doesn’t shy away from great 80s-style gross-out gags.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, Prime Video
Castlevania (2017 – 2021, four seasons)
There’s some solid horror anime out there, but few with a higher profile than this video game adaptation. The show’s opening episodes set it up nicely: It’s 1455, and Lisa, a human interested in studying vampires, forms a sort of partnership with Vlad Tepes, aka Dracula; the series then quickly cuts to Lisa, years later, being burned by Church leaders. Dracula sets out on a quest of bloody vengeance for his lost love, setting in motion four seasons’ worth of beautifully animated and bloody family drama. The main series has concluded, but the Nocturne spin-off, set during the French Revolution, begins its second season in 2025.
Where to stream: Netflix
Folklore (2018 – 2022, two seasons)
The conventions of Japanese horror have made their way stateside, but very often through remakes of popular J-horror movies with American directors and casts. This series serves as a tour of terror from six different Asian countries, each produced locally with different up-and-coming directors. For audiences mostly familiar with western-style horror, the show is going to be a small revelation: They’re modern spins on traditional folkloric tales (the South Korean episode, for instance, involves the mongdal gwisin, a bachelor spirit so desperate for a wife that he’ll kill until he finds the right special lady to be his ghost bride); while the characters are relatable, the takes on horror are unique. Each episode is like a mini-movie.
Where to stream: Netflix
Ghoul (2018, miniseries)
In a dystopian near-future, Radhike Apte plays a woman named Nida, an officer fiercely loyal to the ruling regime and appointed to interrogate a terrorist at a covert detention center. Once inside, things get freaky, and the captive turns the table on his captors, bringing many of their darkest secrets to light. It’s appropriately creepy in the supernatural elements (the Indian import is a Blumhouse co-production), but there’s also real meat here in the show’s just-barely-beneath-the-surface critique of authoritarianism in general, and modern anti-Muslim sentiment specifically.
Where to stream: Netflix
The Outsider (2020, one season)
The premise here is brutal, and impossible: A kid is horrifically murdered, and the evidence decisively points to Little League coach Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman). It’s an open-and-shut case—except that he was out of town at a conference while the murder was occurring, and even appeared on the news in another town. The tragedies pile up, but, being based on a Stephen King book, the threat isn’t exclusively natural. Without giving too much away, it’s among the most disturbing of King adaptations (it’s also incredibly engaging, more than enough to get past the initial distaste). There are great performances here from Bateman, as well as from Ben Mendelsohn and Cynthia Erivo as Holly Gibney, one of King’s recurring characters. HBO declined to renew the show, but it ends fairly decisively.
Where to stream: Max
Castle Rock (2018 – 2019, two seasons)
Speaking of Stephen King (who contributes to Creepshow, and so is represented here for the third time), Castle Rock was advertised to represent sort of a Stephen King omniverse, set in his fictional town and featuring characters and creatures from across his oeuvre. That slightly confusing log line probably hurts the show more than it helps. In reality, it’s a pretty impressive anthology series that works just fine even if you’ve never read a page of King. The first season sees André Holland return to his old home town at the behest of a death-row inmate, and features a powerhouse performance from Sissy Spacek. The second introduces a young Annie Wilkes (from Misery) and a disturbing cult.
Where to stream: Hulu
Kingdom (2019 – 2021, two seasons)
Whenever I feel like the zombie sub-genre has thoroughly played itself out, something like Kingdom comes along—previously, it was another South Korean production, Train to Busan, that reminded me that there’s still life in zombies. This one scoops up zombie tropes and places them in the middle of a period drama: specifically, a royal court of 16th century Korea. Crown Prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) comes upon evidence of a plague that brings the dead back to life even as he fights for political survival in a rapidly changing kingdom. It’s as beautiful as it is bloody. The series continues with the feature-length Ashin of the North.
Where to stream: Netflix
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018 – 2020, four seasons)
The series maintains the core premise of the 90s-era staple (and the Archie comics on which it was based), but takes it to its most twisted ends. Sabrina Spellman is an old-school witch here living in a family that’s not unlike the Addams family—at the outset of the series, she’s being forced to choose between signing her name in Satan’s book and becoming a full-fledged witch, or staying in high school with her normal, human friends. Instead, she refuses to choose. Cannibalism, human sacrifice, and blood rituals abound while sisters keep killing each other and dark forces are sometimes held at bay. By taking things more seriously, it plays as a very dark comedy. True, as the series goes on, the characters soften a bit and the soap opera elements become more pronounced, but by then we’re invested. The series concluded on Netflix, though the producers are shopping a fifth season elsewhere.
Where to stream: Netflix
Slasher (2016 – 2023, five seasons)
Each season of the series tells the story of a single serial killer and their would-be victims, stretching out a traditional slasher-movie story over several hours. With that time, the show manages to actually build lives and backstories for its characters, something that movies don’t always have time for, or can be bothered with (for better or worse). It works here, and each season has introduced fairly compelling characters—it doesn’t hurt that the show focuses largely on adults, rather than more typical teenage victims. The Canadian production has moved around a bit since its beginning—the first three seasons are available on Netflix, but the last two (Flesh & Blood and Ripper) is exclusive to Shudder, while only Flesh & Blood is on Prime. Each stands on its own, so it’s OK to pick it up anywhere.
Where to stream: Netflix, Prime Video, Shudder
The Terror (2018 – , two seasons)
The first season of the series is based upon the Dan Simmons novel of the same name, about a polar expedition that becomes stalled in ice and is subsequently stalked by an unseen presence (even as their relationships break down in equally horrifying ways). It’s gripping and atmospheric, and it’s improved upon by its second season (subtitled Infamy), which similarly blends the horrors of the real world with the supernatural in the story of a west coast family during World War II that’s followed to a Japanese internment camp by a shapeshifting spirit. A third season, the Devil in Silver, based on the Victor LaValle novel, is set to premiere in 2025.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, Prime Video
The Haunting of Hill House (2018, miniseries)
Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush, Doctor Sleep) reinvented Shirley Jackson’s novel (and the brilliant 1963 film version) with this tense family drama that zips back and forth between two eras to tell a story of not just a house, but of the trauma of those in its orbit. What sounds like it might be simply a solid ghost story is definitely that, but it’s also a creepy, atmospheric, and astute horror story that absolutely burrows into the subconscious in ways that few other shows are able to accomplish. Once you’ve recovered from this one, the standalone followup—The Haunting of Bly Manor, based on Henry James’ Turn of the Screw—is equally impressive.
Where to stream: Netflix
The Midnight Club (2022)
I’m cheating here by letting a couple of Mike Flanagan’s Netflix miniseries epics stand in for the entire run, but each is a triumph, right up through the The Fall of the House of Usher, the last one before the filmmaker moves on to Amazon. The Midnight Club, based on a few different YA Christopher Pike novels, feels a bit different: It involves a group of eight terminally ill young patients at a bucolic hospice home run by a secretive and mysterious doctor (A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Heather Langenkamp). Each night the kids meet secretly to share scary stories, with each also promising to return from beyond the grave when their time comes. It’s spooky and often moving without ever being schmaltzy or precious. It was planned as more than a miniseries, so the cancellation leaves several questions unanswered—but that works OK in terms of the show’s overall tone, which had to do with unanswerable mysteries about life and death.
Where to stream: Netflix
Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974 – 1975, one season)
What if X-Files, but with the dad from A Christmas Story? OK, that’s being reductive about the appeal of this, the ur-monster procedural. Darren McGavin plays an outspoken reporter whose inquisitiveness lands him in the middle of supernatural mysteries that no one else will touch, and that few others will believe. Vampires, ghosts, demons: You name it, Kolchak hunts it down and nearly gets killed by it across the show’s scant, but extremely influential, 20 episodes (and a couple of TV movies).
Where to stream: Peacock
