13 Horror TV Shows That You Should Be Streaming Right Now
Horror and television have always been a bit of an awkward fit. What’s scary and what’s bingeable are often mutually exclusive. Horror requires that you suspend your disbelief and the longer it asks of your attention span, the higher the risk that the tension wanes.
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 get your heart racing. Here is a compilation of the very best of the best. What follows are the 13 best streaming horror TV shows.
American Horror Story
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.
Like all anthologies, American Horror Story has its better seasons (season 1 a.k.a. Murder House, season 2 a.k.a. Asylum, season 6 a.k.a. Roanoke) and its worse (season 3 a.k.a. Coven and season 8 a.k.a. Apocalypse). Still, for 10 years and counting, American Horror Story has been one of the go-to options for TV horror fans.
Black Summer
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.
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
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.
Channel Zero
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.
Evil
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.
Evil centers on a trio of experts who investigate supposed miracles, possessions, and all other manner of spooky phenomena for the Catholic Church. Priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter) is a devout believer in demons. Tech expert Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) is a devout skeptic. Forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) is devoutly in the middle. Those fascinating group dynamics play out on a case-of-the-week format that also makes room for a series-long exploration on the nature of true evil.
Folklore
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
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.
Airing over one season series in 1980, Hammer House of Horror presented 13 (BOO!) self-contained episodes that ran the gamut from werewolves to witches. Each individual hour has its own charms but “The House That Bled to Death” is the one that really hammered home Hammer’s vision of televised terror.
The Haunting of Hill House
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.
Lovecraft Country
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.
Midnight Mass
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
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 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
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.
The X-Files follows FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigate the unusual cases that traditional law enforcement won’t touch. For 11 seasons (and a handful of movies), the show expertly balanced a massive series-long story along with what came to be called “monster of the week” self-contained tales.
The Twilight Zone
Honestly, I’m including this one as a gimme. The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. If you haven’t seen this foundational creation, it should be at the absolute top of your list. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe.
Whatever you do, however, do NOT drop your glasses.
