The 20 most disturbing horror TV shows

Hemlock Grove remains one of the stranger series from Netflix, but there’s no denying that it’s a stylish and often deeply disturbing take on vampires and werewolves (though the former are called upir in this particular variation). It also features a number of great performances, including from Famke Janssen and  Bill Skarsgård. Though it might not have been beloved of the critics, it still deserves a lot of credit for taking some risks with storytelling and style, and the result is unlike almost anything else put out by Netflix.

Even though the figure of the vampire has been done to death in film and TV, somehow the series The Strain managed to do something new and exciting. In part, this is because the series, which was co-created by macabre maestro Guillermo del Toro, peels away the layers of romanticism surrounding vampires to reveal the parasitic monsters beneath. In this universe vampires truly are monsters, using parasites to infect humans, and the series’ emphasis on the visceral and the ugly helps it to stand out from the vampire crowd.

The late Darren McGavin played the title character in Kolchak: The Night Stalker, a reporter who investigates mysterious phenomena and ends up getting more than he bargained for. Though the series was remarkably short-lived, the various episodes are often quite funny and very disturbing, with episodes that focus on zombies, a life-stealing Helen of Troy, and a murderous werewolf. This is one of those rare horror comedies that actually manages to make a success out of both of its chosen genres, so it’s easy to see why it remains so beloved by horror enthusiasts.

Even though Black Mirror leans more toward science fiction than straight-up horror, there are enough episodes that send chills down the spine for it to qualify. This series, after all, excels in taking audiences’ fears about technology and turning them into compelling, terrifying, and eerily plausible scenarios. Whether it’s a young woman who finds her life turned into a TV show for public ridicule or the acute danger of artificial intelligence, Black Mirror has more than enough frightening episodes for even the pickiest horror fan.

Hannibal Lecter is one of the most notorious serial killers to have emerged in fiction, and he has been depicted several times on-screen. In the NBC series Hannibal, he is played with suave menace by Mads Mikkelsen, and the series certainly goes out of its way to depict gore, violence, and bloodshed. At the same time, there is something almost painterly about the way that it goes about doing this, and it’s that rare horror show that actually manages to be both deeply unsettlingly and achingly beautiful.

The HBO series The Last of Us,  like many other post-apocalyptic stories, shows the viewer what the world would look like if most of the world’s population became zombies. In this case, though, the agent of social collapse is a fungus that essentially takes over the bodies of its host. This terrifyingly plausible premise is what gives the series its bite. This isn’t to say that the series is entirely without hope, and both Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey give heartfelt performances as Joel and Ellie, two of the few humans on Earth who haven’t been infected.

Based on the beloved novel by Anne Rice, AMC’s Interview with the Vampire focuses on the deeply fraught relationship between vampires Louis, Lestat, Armand, and Claudia, as related to the aging journalist Daniel Molloy. Deeply and sometimes disturbingly sexual, the series is both remarkably faithful to Rice’s novel and yet also not afraid to take storytelling risks. Even though its vampire characters are beautiful, they are also damned, and the show shows the extent to which love for immortals is something that is profoundly desirable yet paved with dangers that none of them are ever really able to avoid.

Guillermo del Toro is one of those directors who always has one foot in horror. Even when his movies aren’t directly part of that genre, there’s always a bit of the macabre present. In the Netflix series Cabinet of Curiosities, he acts as an enthusiastic narrator, introducing the various segments that comprise this anthology series. Each of the vignettes is elegantly constructed and deeply disturbing, just as one would expect from a collection curated by del Toro.

The age of streaming has certainly been a boon to horror TV, and one of the most disturbing recent offerings is Teacup. The series takes place in rural Georgia, and as the episodes go on, more and more strange things start to happen. Teacup is a bit of a slow burn, only gradually increasing the dread and fear factors. As the season has gone on, however, it has shown a remarkable ability to blend strands of horror and sci-fi to create a very atmospheric and creepy watch.

Mike Flanagan’s partnership with Netflix ended with The Fall of the House of Usher, and it’s one of his most ambitious efforts. Drawing on the Gothic horror works of Edgar Allen Poe, Flanagan tells the story of Roderick and Madeline Usher, a pair of ruthless siblings whose bargain with an enigmatic woman comes back to haunt them and their progeny. The entire series can be read as an allegory about the way that the wealthy and the powerful trade away the well-being of their children to hold onto their own power and wealth, and it is precisely its real-world parallels that make it so effective as horror.

With Midnight Mass, Mike Flanagan turned his horror attention to the issue of religion. In this chilling miniseries, an isolated island finds itself haunted by a creature that at first seems to be an angel but is, in fact, a vampire. This miniseries is both remarkably well-acted — Hamish Linklater is particularly unsettling as the well-meaning but devastatingly misguided Father Paul Hill —and also beautiful to watch. Though it is sometimes slow in its pacing, the final horror reveals more than make up for this, showing Flanagan to be one of the top purveyors of horror working today. 

Family trauma is at the heart of The Haunting of Hill House, one of Mike Flanagan’s remarkable horror productions for Netflix. The center of the story is the Crain family, who struggle with the consequences of their mother’s death at Hill House. As with so many of Flanagan’s other productions, it deals with weighty issues including family trauma, death, and mental health. While it may not be particularly faithful to Shirley Jackson’s original novel, it is nevertheless a masterpiece of horror television.

Mike Flanagan has repeatedly shown himself to be a true maestro of the horror form, and each of his Netflix productions demonstrates his skill in the genre. The Haunting of Bly Manor, for example, draws on the work of Henry James to present a ghost story that is as beautiful and haunting as it is terrifying. Indeed, the remarkable thing about this series is that it reveals the extent to which truly effective horror is that which relies as much upon human tragedy as it does jump scares and menacing music.

Even though the two seasons of The Terror are based on different books and focus on different stories and locales, they are joined by their power to unsettle. The first season takes place in the Arctic, where a sinister force pursues the crew of a ship, while the latter focuses on a Japanese internment camp. Both seasons are anchored by terrific performances and a slowly encroaching sense of dread and horror, demonstrating the extent to which TV is often a remarkably suitable vehicle for the macabre.

Few horror TV series have been as influential as The Twilight Zone. Hosted and created by Rod Serling, each episode asks fascinating — and often terrifying — questions about the nature of human life and American culture in the postwar era. It’s one of those shows that manages to be both of its time and yet timeless. Even today, after so many decades, the series still has the power to frighten and to disturb, and its twist endings have been widely imitated but certainly never surpassed. This is the kind of series that stays with the viewer long past the end of an episode.

Ryan Murphy is one of the most prolific creators working in Hollywood and one of his more interesting — if sometimes frustrating — horror efforts is Grotesquerie. In this series, Niecy Nash-Betts portrays alcoholic Detective Lois Tryon, who joins up with an unorthodox nun to investigate a series of brutal crimes committed by a figure calling himself Grotesquerie. The series certainly doesn’t shy away from depicting brutal violence, and while its plot twists may not work for every viewer, it still makes for compelling and thought-provoking viewing.

Unlike its parent series, American Horror Story, American Horror Stories presents stories that are contained within an episode (or sometimes two) rather than over a season. Though it can sometimes be a bit uneven, at its best, this series taps into the same terrifying cultural preoccupations as its predecessor. There’s also something uniquely pleasurable about watching a piece of television that resolves its story within the confines of a single episode, and even the weakest episodes of the series still manage to produce a chill.

American Horror Story may very well be Ryan Murphy’s crowning achievement, if for no other reason than it is still going strong after twelve seasons. Time after time, the series has shown an ability to morph and change, with each season tackling various horror themes with its signature panache. Though it does often lean into the camp element of horror, there are some truly disturbing moments and images, particularly in the second season, Asylum, which is widely regarded as the most terrifying the series has yet produced.

Based on the novel by Matt Ruff, Lovecraft Country,  as its title suggests, combines themes of Lovecraftian horror with the real-life historical terrors of the Jim Crow South. It features a number of terrific performances from the likes of Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett. While it didn’t get the second season that it so richly deserves, it is still nevertheless a remarkable example of how relevant the works of Lovecraft remain and how they can be used to interrogate the author’s own deep-rooted and noxious political beliefs.

The 2020s have seen a true flowering of Black horror, of which one of the premier examples is Them. Released by Amazon Prime, its two seasons take place in two separate periods — the 1950s and the 1990s — and use the conventions of horror to explore the terrifying nature of racism in the United States. Indeed, it’s precisely the series’ ability to cut so close to the bone of reality that, in true horror fashion, makes it such an unsettling, and sometimes downright terrifying, viewing experience.