It is harder to find a great horror TV show than it is to find a great horror movie. Fortunately, Netflix has more than a few memorable horror shows hidden in its library, many of which are vastly different in tone, vibe and look from each other. Whether you are in the mood this spooky season for a somber ghost story that is as emotionally involving as it is terrifying or a more propulsive, comedic and zany horror series, the streaming service probably has whatever you are looking for.
Here are the seven best horror shows streaming on Netflix right now.
“Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” (2022)
Let’s kick this list off with “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.” This striking anthology series premiered on Netflix in October 2022 and brought with it a collection of eight wildly different, auteur-driven horror stories. A frequently grotesque horror riff on “The Twilight Zone” from the filmmaker behind “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Crimson Peak,” not every episode of “Cabinet of Curiosities” is created equal, as is often the case with any anthology series.
The show’s eight installments include more memorable horror adventures than forgettable ones, though, including a deranged single-location episode from “The Empty Man” director David Prior titled “The Autopsy” that is best left as unspoiled as possible. It is tucked within a collection of episodes that successfully show off all the different shades, tones and perspectives that the horror genre can accommodate.
“Brand New Cherry Flavor” (2021)
There are not many shows like “Brand New Cherry Flavor.” This 2021 limited series adaptation of Todd Grimson’s novel of the same name follows a young female filmmaker (Rosa Salazar) who arrives in 1990s Hollywood and quickly meets a powerful film producer (Eric Lange). Everything goes awry when she refuses his sexual advances and he cuts her out of her own film in retaliation.
Salazar’s Lisa responds to that slight by making a deal with a witch (Catherine Keener) to curse him and make him pay for trying to destroy her career. Plenty of surreal, surprisingly bloody and gross moments follow. Directed in part by “The First Omen” filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson and “Thunderbolts” director Jake Schreier, “Brand New Cherry Flavor” frequently bounces between high-energy horror originality and zero-calorie pastiche. It is rarely ever anything but a good time, though, especially for die-hard fans of the horror genre.
“The Haunting of Bly Manor” (2020)
Spoiler alert: This will not be the only show on this list created by “Doctor Sleep” filmmaker Mike Flanagan. However, it is, in this writer’s opinion, the best of Flanagan’s Netflix efforts. A gothic romance that pulls from multiple horror stories by author Henry James, “The Haunting of Bly Manor” is unlike anything else Flanagan has made or been involved in. Overflowing with thick, gothic atmosphere and more romantic tragedy than any viewer could possibly be prepared for, “The Haunting of Bly Manor” is a thoughtful, moving exploration of all the many ways love tends to leave us, well, haunted.
If that makes “The Haunting of Bly Manor” sound low-key or not scary, then now is a good time to note that it is neither of those things. There are startling, effective jump scares scattered throughout its nine episodes, as well as enough sustained moments of dread to more than justify the series’ nine-hour runtime. The show also just happens to be as narratively and thematically rewarding as it is viscerally gripping and scream-inducing. Tune in, enjoy and make sure you’ve got a box of tissues nearby.
“All of Us Are Dead” (2022)
No list like this would be complete without at least one zombie offering. This time, that honor goes to “All of Us Are Dead.” Netflix’s popular South Korean horror series follows the students of an ordinary high school as they are forced to fight for their lives when their science teacher unwittingly releases a virus that turns everyone it contacts into flesh-eating zombies. As you can probably imagine, plenty of lives are lost and blood and guts are spilled.
“All of Us Are Dead” has everything fans of the zombie genre could want. It is astonishingly gory, violent, tense, and it tragically makes the most of its school setting. That said, its first season is 12 episodes long and all of them are pretty relentless, so you should approach how you watch it with a bit of care. It can admittedly be an exhausting show to binge, but if you take more of a measured viewing approach, you will probably have an easier time enjoying “All of Us Are Dead” and its many, gruesome surprises.
“The Haunting of Hill House” (2018)
Mike Flanagan’s first Netflix series, 2018’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” is still one of TV’s best contemporary horror shows. Loosely based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel of the same name, Flanagan’s series jumps backward and forward in time. It follows the various members of its central family as they both experience increasingly traumatic supernatural encounters at their fixer-upper childhood home and later find themselves as adults drawn to the house again by heart-shattering tragedies and malevolent, hungry ghosts.
Directed solely by Flanagan, “The Haunting of Hill House” is a supremely creepy horror show that gets under your skin within its first few minutes and never loosens its vice-like grip from that point on. It is, in many ways, the platonic ideal of what a director-driven TV show can be, and like “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” it has the power to make you scream and cry.
“Trese” (2021)
Horror can be harder to pull off in animation, and yet “Trese” does exactly that. This underrated Netflix series, based on a Filipino comic of the same name, drops viewers right into an unforgiving, fully realized world where ghosts, demons and mythical creatures of all kinds live in a secret underworld hidden just beneath the surface of modern-day Manila. “Trese” follows a warrior-healer, Alexandra Trese (Shay Mitchell), who traffics in both the city’s human and supernatural worlds, working as a thankless protector for mankind.
Comprised of just six episodes, “Trese” is a strange cross between a traditional neo-noir and a full-fledged supernatural horror story. It is violent, nightmarish and downright addictive. While it may not be as outright scary as some of the other shows on this list, it effortlessly immerses you in its fictional world. That, in turn, only makes the brutality and horrors lurking within “Trese” and its six episodes land with that much more force.
“Midnight Mass” (2021)
The third and final Mike Flanagan show on this list is also, perhaps, his most popular. 2021’s “Midnight Mass” is a masterful cross between religious, cult and vampire horror. The series follows the citizens of a small island as they find their community both enraptured and torn apart by the arrival of a mysterious priest (Hamish Linklater) capable of creating miracles that defy all logic and reality. Its cast includes a number of recurring Flanagan players, including Kate Sigel, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli and Henry Thomas.
The series is ultimately held together by Flanagan’s measured, gripping direction and a pair of career-best performances from Hamish Linklater and Zach Gilford. It is a deeply felt, unnerving piece of modern horror, one that pulls clear inspiration from a number of sources, including Stephen King, and yet feels like it could only have been made by Flanagan himself. It is as complete an artistic statement on his part as anything else he has made, and that is not something you can often say about a single season of any TV show.
