With the spooky season upon us, these are 13 Netflix shows perfect for horror fans!
Netflix is home to some of the best horror shows of any streamer. Many come from other networks, like the AMC shows, or from abroad. There are also some shows with supernatural elements, although not quite what one might call truly scary (like Wednesday).
However, Netflix also has scores of series that aren’t just scary but outright nightmarish. Many are from abroad (especially Korea, who specialize in such terrors) while others come from top-notch creators who know how to provide the scares. As Halloween dawns, these are 13 shows you can only find on Netflix, perfect for a spooky night’s watch!
Archive 81
The best horror is less jump scares and the like, and more the slow tension and what you can’t see. This show, based on a popular podcast, captures that as Dan (Mamoudou Athie) is restoring tapes made in 1994 by Melody (Dina Shihabi), a grad student investigating a building fire. Bouncing between the two eras, the show slowly weaves its web of fear and a sinister cult enters the fray.
There’s also Dan realizing it’s not just a coincidence he’s working on these tapes, and the strange connection builds as it goes. While only lasting one year, it’s still a top-notch thriller that stands as an incredible thrill of a watch that rests on the low-key tension rather than the over-the-top frights.
Slasher
Sharing seasons with Chiller and then Shudder, this anthology series is a true love letter to the slasher genre. The first three seasons each feature a different cast of characters hunted by a masked killer. The settings are classic, like a summer camp or small town, with twists plentiful and flashbacks explaining why these massacres take place.
The seasons are fun, not totally parodying the genre but paying homage to the concept. They also boast some wicked kills and a great watch. While the last three seasons aren’t on Netflix yet, the first three alone are everything a slasher fan could ask for.
Parasyte: The Gray
A Korean drama based on a beloved manga directed by the man behind the modern zombie classic Train to Busan? It’s mana to horror fans. Yeon Sang-ho handles this adaptation about a parasitic virus that mutates people into monsters. The special effects and makeup are spine-tingling and always put you on edge to get the tale off on the appropriately scary foot.
It’s the rare live-action anime adaptation that truly works, with the human emotions abounding amid the exploits and the battle for survival. The flesh-destroying beings and the gore are visceral, while you truly care for the characters. Amid a field of Korean horror shows (enough to warrant its own list), this truly stands out.
1899
There’s something about a ship in trouble that enhances a gripping horror story. Being out to sea and in remote locations adds to the brooding atmosphere that this multilingual show carries in droves. The simple plot is a group of emigrants heading to New York in the titular year, only to encounter mysterious goings-on. The show is less about jump scares and more about the overall mood and the mystery abounding.
It gets more convoluted as it goes, with some sci-fi elements while still retaining its overall grim mood with serious stakes involved. Like too many great Netflix shows, it only lasted one season, yet should still be seen as a standout remote horror tale.
Brand New Cherry Flavor
This underrated limited series stars Rosa Salazar as an aspiring filmmaker coming to a bizarre version of 1990s Los Angeles for fame. But an encounter with a witch (Catherine Keener) leads her into a dark journey involving human sacrifice and linking the dark arts with the seedy underbelly of Hollywood.
There’s some sharp satire of the industry alongside a crazy style that matches the tale. It’s a frantic show with some pretty gross-out moments while Salzar and Keener ground it in their standout performances. It deserves more attention for a hyper-energy take on ‘90s movies that may not be everyone’s flavor, yet worth a try.
The Haunting of Hill House
Now we get to a man whose name has become synonymous with horror: Mike Flanagan. He had his own mini-empire of shows on Netflix, with The Haunting of Hill House still considered the best of the bunch. It’s split into two time periods as a family experiences a summer in a moody manor, while decades in the future, the grown-up kids and their father (Timothy Hutton) are literally haunted by the experience.
The dual timelines are excellently balanced as the story shifts across time with some truly stunning turns. There are also plenty of scary moments playing on paranoia, confinement and mental illness, and the reveal of what’s causing all this is shocking. It’s a skillful adaptation of the best-selling book and puts Flanagan on the map as a modern horror master.
Midnight Mass
This may be the best Stephen King story King never wrote. Mike Flanagan strikes again with this tale of a small island community that grips you from the start and doesn’t let go. Zack Gilford is a troubled young man returning to his home just as it gains a new priest (Hamish Linklater). It doesn’t take long for strange occurrences like people suddenly getting younger and sudden deaths to reveal a sinister threat.
While the nature of the menace is obvious, how we get there is the best part. The series mingles elements of culture, religion, and more with the remote island setting, keeping the tale closed off to enhance the scares. It’s one of Flanagan’s better works, and one of the best you’ll find in this horror genre.
The Fall of the House of Usher
Combine Flanagan with the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and the results are wonderful. The Usher family is a powerful clan who are incredibly wealthy while causing misery to untold millions via their opioid business. As the show opens, almost all the family has died in mysterious accidents, with the father (Bruce Greenwood) reflecting on what’s caused this curse.
Each episode focuses on a different child and their grisly fate with a great cast of Greenwood, Mary McDonnell, an against-type Mark Hamill as the family lawyer and, most importantly, Carla Gugino as a mysterious woman tied to each death. Gugino, especially, is astounding as this figure is tied to the family’s fate, with the finale amping up the scares for one of Flanagan's best TV efforts.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities
Of course, the Oscar-winning director is going to present a dark and scary series. This anthology notably has episodes handled by famed horror directors such as Jennifer Kent, Ana Lily Amirpour, Keith Thomas, and Catherine Hardwicke. The tales are gothic takes, even those set in modern times, mixing elements of a haunted house, a cursed painting and even aliens.
While that sounds wild, the episodes all work well thanks to the talents involved. While not every episode is excellent, even the poorer ones are better and scarier than many anthology series out there. Leave it to del Toro to give the horror anthology the spark it needs.
Hellbound
Squid Game got the press, but another South Korean Netflix show in 2021 earned equally worthy praise. Normal Seoul residents are thrown when an “angel” shows up to warn them they’re being sent on a one-way trip to Hell, either years or even seconds from now. While seeing people being ruthlessly killed and claimed by demons is scary enough, the real terror is from the warring groups preying on the fears for their own gain.
The show has a great presentation that frames the “abductions” as if they were YouTube videos and powerful storylines, like a couple informed their newborn will be claimed years from now. The battles of the factions amid this misery is an extra touch to remind people how South Korea handles horror on a whole other level.
Black Mirror
It may be more sci-fi, yet Netflix’s acclaimed anthology is also one of the more terrifying shows on television. That’s because much of it is shockingly realistic, with tales looking like they're set just a few years on from our world. There are dark takes on technology and losing humanity, yet the real terror is the human factor. That’s proven in arguably its most famous episode, where a woman enters a virtual reality world of a starship only to find its captain is a monster.
There are also gripping tales of a man forced to ride a bike to generate power, tales of AI run amok, and more. Any episode creeps you out as you worry just how far in the future these tales can become reality.
Red Rose
Leave it to the British to put a modern spin on horror, using the worries about a generation addicted to their phones. Three friends have plans for a lovely summer, only to download the titular app, which at first seems to be a fun game. It then starts making demands for them to engage in criminal behavior, and anyone who refuses pays the consequences.
The mind games are twisted enough, yet the show ups the ante with actual supernatural elements. The setting helps, as these kids in a working town have to use unique methods to try and figure out who (or what) is behind all this. It slipped under the radar, but for those wanting a melding of old and new horror, this shines brightly.
Marianne
This too-overlooked 2019 French series begins much like Misery as an author (Victoire Du Bois) announces she’s killing off her popular horror novel character and moving on. She’s approached by what she thinks is a twisted fan who believes she is her witch character. When that fan dies, Du Bois returns to her hometown, only for a series of events to make her worry her novels may have been more inspired by real life than she thought.
The series utilizes jump scares, some gothic horror, a classic setup of a small town besieged by evil and more to thrill audiences. Then there’s Marianne herself, the twisted witch at the heart of it all, whose eyes will haunt your nightmares. It’s an astoundingly genius horror tale that wraps things up while leaving some doors open and even Stephen King himself would have to honor it as terrifying.