Horror TVis in a strong place in 2025, with shows regularly coming out, Shudder offering new horror all the time, and the genre becoming a staple of prestige TV.Horror has often been the property of the movie industry, but horror TV still has roots that extend far back in entertainment history. The budgets required for horror with creature effects, gore, and costuming meant it was always expensive to put up something effective. Still, shows likeThe Twilight Zone,The Munsters,Alfred Hitchcock Presents, andScooby-Doo, Where Are You!proved the genre could be popular even on TV.
Now,horror pops up in TV all the time.Stranger Things,What We Do In The Shadows,The Haunting of Hill House, andThe Last of Usare just a handful of popular and acclaimed TV shows that are steeped in horror.Horror mixes well with mystery, comedy, science fiction, and anything elseas long as a showrunner wants to add an exciting jolt to their series. With the glut of horror TV shows available to watch, naturally, some are going to fall through the cracks. These horror TV shows have gone by relatively unnoticed, but are no less worth checking out.
Set around 30 years afterArmy of Darknessandthe rest of Sam Raimi’sEvil Deadtrilogy,Ash vs. Evil Deadsees Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) still working at the “Value Stop” as a stock boy. Not much has changed for him since battling the armies of the undead in 1300 AD, and he’s slid back into the unambitious lifestyle that he enjoyed before opening the Necronomicon. However, when the Evil Dead rise, Ash is obligated to once again take up arms and save the world, now with the help of his two young friends.
Far from being an ill-fated rehash of the beloved cult movies,Ash vs Evil Deadis a respectful and true to the source material series that is filled with all the same gore, insanity, and jokes of Raimi’s film. Every season of the show gets better, and the longer runtime gives Campbell the time he needs to explore the character.
An original horror TV script written by Stephen King, though not based on a Stephen King book,Rose Redis a three-episode miniseries centered on a purportedly haunted mansion in Seattle, Washington, colloquially known asRed Rose. 23 people are said to have disappeared or died within the mansion, so Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis), a professor of parapsychology, decides to investigate it with her team to find scientific proof of the paranormal. They find that and more.
Stephen Spielberg originally asked Stephen King to write the series.
It’s a wonderfully restrained show, with characters behaving like real people and impressive special effects that never overwhelm. It’s not the scariest series to ever come from King, but it’s filled with his rich characters and a story that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. King also put many references to his other work in the series, making it required viewing for fans who enjoyedCastle Rockand are looking forward toIt: Welcome to Derry.
There are a lot of entries inthe anthology horror TV show game, withBlack MirrorandThe Twilight Zonebeing some classic examples, but there are also some lesser-known anthology series, likeChannel Zero. This science fiction series premiered in 2016 and ran for four seasons, with episodes based on popular creepypastas, internet horror stories that are often in the first person and are purported to be true.
It’s an unsettling series with a unique story every episode. The stories, as they come from the internet, are beholden to very few rules, andeach episode feels authentic and very different from one another.Channel Zeropresents relatable fears, but adds layers of mystery, which make for an intriguing watch. Despite the anthology nature of the show, every season is its own story, so you get to know and understand a cast of characters every season, rather than everything changing from episode to episode.
The French horror series,Marianne, premiered on Netflix in 2019 and went dramatically underseen. The series depicts a horrific story of witchcraft in the French countryside. It’s an intense series that begins the mystery and scares from the very first episode. A best-selling horror author, Emma Larsimon (Victoire Du Bois), decides she is done with the genre. However, a childhood friend arrives with some unsettling news: her mother seems to think she is the witch antagonist from Emma’s novels.
So begins a sinister plot involving suicide, witchcraft, and the occult that ropes Emma back into a horrific world, but one that she no longer controls. It’s a tightly written series that avoids going off on too many tangents, keeping its focus on Emma and the events happening to her. It’s also terrifying, with the mother, Mrs. Daugeron (Mireille Herbstmeyer), being one of the more frightening TV horror characters in recent memory.
Mike Flanagan’s third TV show,Midnight Mass, would probably have been more widely seen had it not come afterThe Haunting of Hill HouseandThe Haunting of Bly Manor. It’s not that it’s worse than those TV shows; in fact, it’s arguably better, but after two Flanagan horror miniseries, fans were probably looking for something new, and those who needed to catch up on his TV shows would likely assume they need to watch his original two series first.
It will make you furious at certain characters as much as it will make you teary-eyed.
That’s a shame becauseMidnight Massis a wholly unique series that is equal parts terrifying, thought-provoking, and gut-wrenching. It will make you furious at certain characters as much as it will make you teary-eyed. There are a lot of heroes, and though there are villains, their motives feel so well-thought-out that even as they receive their comeuppance, you’re able to’t help but feel for them too.
It’s as good a time as any to start watchingFromconsidering season 4 was greenlitin November 2024. The series, which stars Harold Perrineau, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Eion Bailey, and David Alpay, is set in a mysterious, horrific town that traps everyone who enters it. When someone drives through, they end up unable to find a way out, and at night, shapeshifting creatures emerge from the surrounding forest to hunt those who are trapped for sport.
It’s a mind-bending and thrilling series that never forgets it’s a horror TV showfirst and foremost. With a stellar cast,Frommanages to tell an intriguing story despite the setting remaining static. It’s a show that could have easily gotten repetitive over time, but the series has managed to keep the story fresh and scary. The only issue is that the wait for season 4 of thisunderrated horror TV showcould take a long time.
